SmedBlog (last year): NPC Enemies and Armies

[Hamma]

I'm doing targeted feedback threads on all items from Smed's Blog (http://john-smedley.livejournal.com/2412.html). This one is for NPC Enemies/Armies.

NPC enemies - I don't want to call this PVE. That's not exactly what we have in mind. More like a global invasion that goes after everybody. This isn't a bunch of quest givers saying "go kill 10 rats" - this is bad ass aliens that want to gut you.

NPC armies - imagine as the commander of a base sending an NPC army towards another base MOBA style except it's in the middle of the Planetside 2. This isn't another game mode. It's all part of the same game.

Thoughts!

[Blackwolf]

Uncertain about NPC armies. I think the players shouldn't be substituted for NPCs when going against other players.

NPC enemy invasion might be a cool treat or event at some points, but not on a regular basis.

[DriftyMcDrift]

Uncertain about NPC armies. I think the players shouldn't be substituted for NPCs when going against other players.

NPC enemy invasion might be a cool treat or event at some points, but not on a regular basis.

:thumbsup: +1

[ringring]

nah, not for me.

PS is supposed to be unique isn't it?

[JPalmer]

I could see the NPC armies working on the big continents were only Outfits will be on. Think about it there will be times when certain Outfits only have 5 or 10 people on. NPCs can be called in to protect expensive bases.

[IHateMMOs]

No, just no. How about increasing the max population per continent instead?

[AnamNantom]

I'm doing targeted feedback threads on all items from Smed's Blog (http://john-smedley.livejournal.com/2412.html). This one is for NPC Enemies/Armies.





Thoughts!

I'd love to see the Vanu aliens and see if my concepts are close :

http://anam.tilt180.com/vanu-alien-3d/

[Atheosim]

Uncertain about NPC armies. I think the players shouldn't be substituted for NPCs when going against other players.

NPC enemy invasion might be a cool treat or event at some points, but not on a regular basis.

/signed

[VikingKong]

Errr... no. That sounds just awful. :doh:

[Hmr85]

No, not a fan of it. I want to kill other players not AI.

[Lueyja]

I think the invasion idea would be a good break from "routine" gameplay but it needs to be very rare. As in like once or twice a year

[Stardouser]

As weekly or monthly events? Sure. As a daily occurrence that detracts from killing smurfs, elmoz and barneys though it would be too much.

And smed's blog said something about being able to willfully send them against the enemy? Unsure about that. Need to know more.

[PlaceboCyanide]

I'm not against the idea 100%, but I can easily understand why so many people might be. I think the way it needs to be done is to create a specific set or group of continents that involve this 4th Empire.

The footholds work, it appears you will be able to join any continent you want at any time. No need to create a new game-mode to incorporate this idea, simply give players the choice if they want to participate in it or not. If the facebook/twitter/youtube feedback has shown us anything- it is that the PS2 community will be massive once it comes out- making play base division less of an issue. People will simply play what they prefer. One example that comes to mind is League of Legends. there is the Classic MOBA of the Summoner's Rift map as well as the Dominion game mode. Same game- different styles.

[sameer]

*cough* Firefall *cough*

[Akrasjel Lanate]

I'm not sure, would have to see the concept for this idea.

[Blackwolf]

I'd be happier with NPC wildlife personally. Have that wildlife steer clear of minor or major battles and it wouldn't impact the game mechanics or the fight.

[Revanmug]

If I was so much interest in killing npcs in a fps, I would play a single player/coop game since there is alot of them around.

[Rivenshield]

/groan

Yeah, just give us a good alien invasion every now and then. But nothing else. PLEASE.

[Mox]

Maybe some npcs defending an empty base. Everthing else would be too much i think.

Maybe some temporary live event (Alien race attacks Auraxis) . Something like that.

[Satyxis]

Not interested.

[ComerEste]

I'd love to see the Vanu aliens and see if my concepts are close :

http://anam.tilt180.com/vanu-alien-3d/

I thought they re-did the lore behind the game to say that Vanu was the name of the scientist who discovered the alien tech and not the actual name of the species?

On the topic: I am 100% against NPC combatants in any shape or form. NPC gatherers that don't fight even when attacked is OK with me though.

As stated above, the one thing that makes Planetside so great and unique is the fact that everything you fight is another player. Adding combat NPC's, even in rare event cases, would be boring after the first day. Please don't turn the game into Tabula Rasa, remember that game fell flat on its face.:rolleyes:

Edit: Wanted to add that the reason it would be boring is because fighting NPC's is too easy. Sure it might be difficult the first time, but after you learn NPC-A does this and this and NPC-B does this and this, it becomes muscle memory. The challenge of fighting live opponents that you never know what tactic they will use will always be better than an programmed NPC.

[RSphil]

Invasion sounds good now and then but npc armies. I'm with you guys. No, don't spoil
It now after so much good work

[Duskguy]

wouldnt mind a random event sort of neutral invasion thing occuring, but not a regular basis or controllable event.

what i am thinking is at random, somewhere in the center of the map(3-10 areas) or all across the borders where there are less concentrated amounts of players, or no players, suddenly become neutral no matter who controls them. and all the turrets are automated, firing at any vehicle/soldier that comes near. inside the bases could either be MAX units that walk random patrols (no set routes) or a whole bunch of automated turrets that are much like the engineer's, but randomly placed, again, attacking anyone/thing that comes near.

this would make part of the map a sudden hotspot where factions could race towards to capture, or push forward their front while another faction goes after them. and again, this would not be a scheduled thing, it would happen randomly every other month, or once a month at the shortest. meaning at any time every 30-60 days a faction could sudenly find itself without a whole bunch of resources and land.

[Tapman]

I had a post a while back suggesting an NPC event in the form of a temporary invasion by space bugs a la Starship Troopers as part of an overarching story that later leads to discovering their homeworld, then to invading it and clearing them out as a segway for adding a new planet/moon into the mix for everyone to fight over with new resources and new tech from them. You could also play around with the weather/gravity to make a completely unique environment.

I would be OK with event-based NPC's that don't interfere with the vast majority of the battle if it meant more variety and larger server populations, plus you could always have areas available to play in that don't have the NPC's so that everyone wins.

[SturmovikDrakon]

Alien invasion, by the same race of Vanu?

Dunno', that would kind of detract from the mystery of the race

[XxAxMayxX]

some sort of alien life you have 2 deal with actually sounds fun. its basicly just another form of a weather fx it just has AI and does damage.

MAybe some little rat or bat like things if we ever see caves.

Alien invasion, by the same race of Vanu?

Dunno', that would kind of detract from the mystery of the race

I don't think they will go for intelligent races but more like packs of wolf like creatures or something.

[SturmovikDrakon]

I thought they re-did the lore behind the game to say that Vanu was the name of the scientist who discovered the alien tech and not the actual name of the species?

On the topic: I am 100% against NPC combatants in any shape or form. NPC gatherers that don't fight even when attacked is OK with me though.

As stated above, the one thing that makes Planetside so great and unique is the fact that everything you fight is another player. Adding combat NPC's, even in rare event cases, would be boring after the first day. Please don't turn the game into Tabula Rasa, remember that game fell flat on its face.:rolleyes:

Edit: Wanted to add that the reason it would be boring is because fighting NPC's is too easy. Sure it might be difficult the first time, but after you learn NPC-A does this and this and NPC-B does this and this, it becomes muscle memory. The challenge of fighting live opponents that you never know what tactic they will use will always be better than an programmed NPC.

Nah, Vanu was the name that a scientist heard in his mind when he touched the first discovered artifact in Earth's system

[Sledgecrushr]

Easy to accomplish by taking assets from SOEs other big mmo eqnext.

[SpottyGekko]

Hmmm... I'm inclined to say flat-out NO.

Introducing credible NPC's will take a lot of man hours that could be spent in improving other areas of the game, and they would be inferior opponents.

Why would anyone fight NPC's anyway ? For "phat lootz" ?

[Comet]

Depends how it gets implemented. I would rather have only NPC wildlife. If they did do something like this, make it small, part of the command tree and maybe only once the player base starts to dwindle to the point where there are no great big fights anymore. Hopefully that doesn't happen though.

[Sledgecrushr]

I think this scenario would be cool, its midafternoon game time one month after the release of ps2. You have been holding on to the crater for hours and getting close to time to quit for the day when you notice that there is an oddly expanding shadow growing over the base. Looking uP you see a black cloud descending from the edge of space. As it grows you start picking up individual shapes and your voice catches in the back of your throat. The daytime sky has blackened with the arrival of billions of hungry bugs.

[Notsononymous]

Alien invasions? I don't know, have you ever seen the Homer Simpson beer bottle opener? It comes with a speaker that, when you open the beer says in his voice "Mmm Beeeer. YES OH YES WOOHOO!". I feel like that but with bad ass aliens that want to gut you instead of beer.

[infinite loop]

I pray to god that the devs tell Smed to keep his dumb ideas to himself. If he has his way, it will be the Core Combat for PS2. This is just awful.

[Zulthus]

I'm starting to get really nervous about where this game might be headed...

[p0intman]

If I WANT an NPC army, I play CnC or supreme commander. Not a good idea.

[Kriegson]

Hrm...sending units from a base to attack another base in real time...I like the idea. A good way to supplement an assault, and possibly to defend an important point from all but the most dedicated 3Am raider groups.

[Mr Underbeard]

Rare alien invasion yes. Regular NPC's not at all. That would be stupid. It would take away from the importance of outfits, platoons, squads. When one guy can just spawn in some NPC's to come take a base, then it gets stupid.

I think the resource gathers would be cool though. It gives a way to interrupt enemy resources without fully taking the hex.

[Tzitzimitl]

Rare alien invasion yes. Regular NPC's not at all. That would be stupid. It would take away from the importance of outfits, platoons, squads. When one guy can just spawn in some NPC's to come take a base, then it gets stupid.

I think the resource gathers would be cool though. It gives a way to interrupt enemy resources without fully taking the hex.

Basically this. Also i would prefer that the resources spent on how to implement npcs be allocated to allowing more players on a continent.

[RSphil]

i think this is a no for the npc army thing.

but a maybe for the odd npc invasion. sounds good to me. keep as is with the odd mass invasion. once every couple of months randomly .

[Khaan]

pliz dont, i spend all my time on the forums reading i almost never give my input but i cant sit back and let this one happen.

if it does go though put it on a content FAR FAR away from me. i dont want NPCs messing with my game play.

even with it on another content it still messes with the game play. it means there will be 2000 less noobs to kill on all the others.

so pliz pliz dont do this.

[Rat]

I dont like the idea of a 4th faction or being able to direct npcs, but alien invasion event on a single continent would be cool as long as there was a kick ass reward for involvement, and being on a single content would allow peeps that dont want to participate to fight as usual on the other continents.

[Neurotoxin]

It creates extra tension.

On one hand, above-player-level leadership of all 3 factions would likely agree to put war on hold while using all resources to eliminate any invading threat that would reduce humanity's chances on Auraxis.

On the other hand, it could easily become a thing that either draws players from where they are needed, or forces them to commit a force to an area that is otherwise meaningless in the current battle.

But the problem is AI. The time it would take to put in reasonable AI that is balanced and has variation seems like a long project, and unless it is already in-progress, it'll be a long time before the AI enemy will be ready. It may be less of an issue if they are mindless creatures that see in the dark, come out of the ground, and attack the closest thing they see.... but they should pop up one per hex, or an equal amount per empire, so that it doesn't kill the flow of gameplay too much.

Then again, I could see this as a way to start introducing Ancient Tech or a new equivalent... Flails and maelstroms would not be fun to fight against.

[super pretendo]

I don't think this is an inherently bad idea. I just think it would need to be done right, which would be hard.

[Kerafyrm]

I am all for alien invasions as events. I don't know if anyone here played Aion but i'm thinking it will be something like the Dredgion Battle ship that showed up randomly anytime anywhere in the abyss and doesn't always attack people sometimes it would just patrol around check stuff out then warp out. Like i said it was completely random when it showed up and it was not a every day thing neither was it attacking people or taking castles back over. I highly doubt they would permanently put NPC into the game as it would kill the game due to everyone here is pretty much a hardcore pvper.

[Blackwolf]

Problem with NPC armies is that Planetside was designed around Players controlling every aspect.

If the game was designed around NPCs forming the front lines and the players participating in an attempt to create truely massive battles, then yay. But it wasn't. The idea behind Planetside was pure PvP and NPC armies would seriously detract from that idea.

[RoninOni]

I could see some starship troopers-esque metoer bug alien attacks that happen a couple times a year, and lasts for 24-48 hours (3-8 in game days).

They'd happen on different continents at different times, if you think about the earth rotating under a meteor shower it makes sense as to why it'd be 1 continent at a time through the duration of the invasion... with spikes and lulls in the activity as well..

^THAT could be fun and an occasional and rare distraction from the greater war effort as all factions lock down on defensive mode... and maybe some armies exploit a faction being swarmed with an attack at the same time.... could be interesting.

I'm particularly reserved about NPC armies however...... Only use I could really see for it is Feint attacks where the real players are lining up for an attack somewhere else and the NPC's are used as Bait. Honestly though, I'm not particularly confident in this idea.

[Envenom]

LOVE this idea. I'd really like to see this in game.

[Boone]

If they want RTS elements I'd rather be able to deploy structures (walls, turrets, AA,) and things like that. They would have to cap how much you could spawn/drop or just make it super expensive otherwise people would just clutter shit up ala Starhawk.

After thinking about it for a second it might be pretty cool to be able to drop some kind of giant bug army on top of people and watch them scatter.

The servers wont be full all the time so we definetely need some other elements outside of it just being "a giant shooter" more or less.

[VikingKong]

Hrm...sending units from a base to attack another base in real time...I like the idea. A good way to supplement an assault, and possibly to defend an important point from all but the most dedicated 3Am raider groups.
We already can. With players.
LOVE this idea. I'd really like to see this in game.
Then clearly PS2 isn't the game for you, because this sounds like the complete opposite.

[Electrofreak]

Not diggin' the idea of npcs in PS2. Aliens... maybe.

[Smed]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

[Boone]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed


Yes

No

No

[NewSith]

Yes

No

No

Pretty much this.

[TheDAWinz]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

If you do implement this, then the first one would be preferable :D

[super pretendo]

I think the scripting thing is the most inspired idea of the three.

[RoninOni]

A holiday event (that doesn't last all fucking day) sure. An every day thing.. fuck no.

hell no not every day... annually or biannually for a day or 2... that's different.

If you personally really really end up hating it, it wouldn't be overly difficult to avoid.

It could also sew all KINDS of chaos. I think preferably it would be best as a random unexpected, but really REALLY rare event.

[AnamNantom]

I like shifters and I like the scripting language AI idea ALOT. Reminds me of scripting in Linden Language (Secondlife) or that old Playstation 1 game, Carnage Heart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnage_Heart).

Will we see our beloved Vanu Aliens?

[VikingKong]

All great ideas for your new MMORPG, I'm sure, but what's it got to do with Planetside? :confused:
The day I'm in a tense firefight with a fellow player and I get killed from behind by a bot... well that's the day I stop playing. All Higby's talk about the game being one enormous, entirely player driven battle is what got me interested in PS2 in the first place. This... this is not that. :no:

[RoninOni]

I think the scripting thing is the most inspired idea of the three.
scripting is most certainly an interesting concept...

I'm still VERY weary of combat AI units beyond basic drones, but maybe they can be enhanced with scripting as well.

However I could see use in AI for non-combat tasks.

Implemented with harvesters for example, and resource transports to bring the resources from the facilities to the supply bases.

So I could see some scripting to enhance base defenses, and to add new tactical options around resource control, without making actual players manually do mining, or drive supply routes all day.


Will we see our beloved Vanu Aliens?

I'll laugh my bum off when the Vanu do return to kill all humans, no matter if you're Vanu Sovereignty. :lol:

[Hamma]

Thanks for the additional details Smed!

Let's post constructively in here guys if you intend to respond. Thanks ;)

[Duskguy]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

Yes

No

No

as was said, pretty much this ^^

sending swarms of creeps...? why? we are all interested in a pvp game, if we wanted to fight creeps, we could play the games that gave you that idea.
selling AI robots? please no. there is no need for deplyable ai...at all.
the big bad alien idea however i could deal with. as i said in a previous post, having them auto neutralize some random placed, x amount of territory, and having to fight to claim/reclaim the territory.

[RoninOni]

@Smedley:

If you do add the alien attack thing.... do it without warning players :D

Would be the most amazing and memorable game event ever if you were in a massive assault the first time the sky blackens.

Should always be random (and incredibly rare), just don't warn anyone that it's incomming :lol:

[Oryon22]

Alien invasion would be interesting. I'm not a fan of the other ideas.

[scufmark]

Yeah, first one, is a good to go idea. Maybe once a month/week on a random day or something. But no to the second and third. Just... No. The entire reason I wanted to play PS2 was because it was all based on PvP

[OpolE]

NO TO ALL

IF THE ALIENS WERE CONTROLLED BY DEVS OR PLAYERS then yes. Like a one off event like black ops that people are summoned to!

[Harasus]

Sounds like it could be fun once/month, on some servers.

[Toppopia]

@Smedley:

If you do add the alien attack thing.... do it without warning players :D

Would be the most amazing and memorable game event ever if you were in a massive assault the first time the sky blackens.

Should always be random, just don't warn anyone that it's incomming :lol:

This ^ Random events that are actually random, no warning what so ever. Could imagine some faction being beaten, then next minute the winning faction(s) retreat and you are wondering why, until you get reports of an alien invasion.

[Blackwolf]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.


I'd rather see Zerg type aliens then super powerful ones personally. If it isn't something that a player could take down one on one then it's going to kill the game. RPGs are built around the concept of super powerful baddies that require entire groups to kill. FPSes are built around very fast kill times and are a lot more "gritty". Alien invasion involving swarms of critters that you have to gun down as much as possible just to stay alive? Sure. Super powerful aliens that entire squads might have trouble killing, no way.


The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.



One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

Like I said before, substituting a player for an NPC when engaging the enemy is just a bad idea. Planetside wasn't built around this kind of system and it would ruin the game.

[Electrofreak]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

It's an interesting idea, Smed. Since I know you play EVE Online too (I've been playing since shortly after launch myself) I would compare it to Incursions. But a lot of us vets are pretty wary about the idea of fighting npcs, even if we can control the friendly npcs after a fashion.

Sorry if I'm a little bit gun shy, but I remember the excellent mechanics of PS1 set into a downward spiral by the introduction of BFRs, which seemed like a great idea at the time. And, not to bring up a sore subject, but many of us also remember a similar gameplay-wrenching change in SWG that basically destroyed the game for many players.

I would suggest that players, as excited as we are to hear about many of these changes, would also be comforted to hear that the development of PS2 will remain cautious, particularly to the more... innovative development avenues.

In EVE-Online, the introduction of heavily-priced microtransactions and Walking in Stations (launched in a half-baked form without any player-to-player interaction) almost spelled the death of a game that has gone for a decade while only increasing its subscriber base and community loyalty. EVE's developers made a rapid change in development direction when its players made it clear what they wanted from the game, and I still believe it's what saved the game.

We all need to know that SOE will lend us the same ear. The problem is that we, as players, often are just as excited as you, the developers, when it comes to a cool new concept.

I could link a video of myself back in 2004 excitedly asking questions of T-Ray, CriticalMass, and Fisa about upcoming PS1 features (during PSUMA in Orlando, FL). Some of the ideas seemed so great at the time, but ultimately sent PS1 into a tailspin. Hopefully we can avoid that this time around.

TL;DR - Be gentle with us Smed... we gamers are delicate and fickle creatures. :)

[RoninOni]

Sounds like it could be fun once/month, on some servers.

I could definitely see having some servers be "Alien free" for those who want a 'purer' experience.

Personally I don't see 2-4 days a year overtly affecting the game play, and if someone really really didn't like it, then for those rare events they can either just stay off, or better if the attacks went through 1 continent at a time, simulating the planets rotation towards the direction of the attack, then you could just avoid whatever continent it is for that short duration during the rare event.

[Archonzero]

Uncertain about NPC armies. I think the players shouldn't be substituted for NPCs when going against other players.

NPC enemy invasion might be a cool treat or event at some points, but not on a regular basis.

+1. NPC invasion could/should have a dev staffed control interface to allow the devs the ability to direct NPC invasion forces. An I hope these NPCs are the aliens the VS got the tech from, or perhaps another race seeking to steal the tech themselves. Mayhaps BOTH! A little variation, scavenger alien mercs, progenitor aliens of the VS re-engineered tech, etcetera.

Why limit the idea to simply one type of NPC invader.

[Duskguy]

again, random super alien invasion would be interesting, and not being able to handle one on one would make the idea even more interesting. makes me think of starship troopers, and that could be interesting so long as its not a daily continuous thing.

if you do this, make it something like once a month and lasting until some special unit dies at which point no new aliens would spawn and all that would be left would be the clean up and securing of the territories.

[SniperSteve]

No, but perhaps if it is super infrequent.

No

No

[VikingKong]

This ^ Random events that are actually random, no warning what so ever. Could imagine some faction being beaten, then next minute the winning faction(s) retreat and you are wondering why, until you get reports of an alien invasion.
Yep, that's just what people will want after spending possibly months of their lives, slowly working their way across a continent through a sea of TR blood and whatever it is that a vanu spurts out... Herpa derp im a alion and this iz all miyn naow LOLZ! Great fun.

That was sarcasm, btw. D:

[Baneblade]

I think it is a recipe for massive lag cookies.

[Beregond]

Adding some NPC related event would be a cool feature that could add some extra strategic options; the first similar thing that come to my mind is Aion PVP zones: at random times an enormous alien battleship flies over a random base and blow the shit out of it taking control of the zone, acting as an independent 4th faction and players must face them to retake it; retaking the base could give some special bonuses to that faction, something similar to the old PS1 cavelock.

[RoninOni]

I'd rather see Zerg type aliens then super powerful ones personally. If it isn't something that a player could take down one on one then it's going to kill the game. RPGs are built around the concept of super powerful baddies that require entire groups to kill. FPSes are built around very fast kill times and are a lot more "gritty". Alien invasion involving swarms of critters that you have to gun down as much as possible just to stay alive? Sure. Super powerful aliens that entire squads might have trouble killing, no way.

I agree, but there should be some bigger, larger ones as well that do take some serious fire power.

TONS AND TONS AND TONS of lil swarmy bastards though

Also, I edited that 1 post... should also be incredibly rare.

Mechanically (programatically) I would see this done as a very very rare (maybe scripted in secret, maybe randomly generated) global event that once triggered lasts 24-48 hours, but actually does nothing but allow for common but random local events. If determined randomly, events should be between 7-11 months apart. Weekends could be given significantly higher proc chance than weekdays.

The local events would be the meteor storms themselves, and their size, location, and even qty and types of aliens would all be randomized. Certain factors programmed into the map different locations, as well as current population densities, would affect the different variables.

As I also said elsewhere, the 'face of the planet' should affect it, so only 1 continent at a time (or 1/3rd the continents), would have a chance at having the local event happen. In effect, as the different continents should have different current time of days to simulate their different face of the planet, so could time of day be used as a filter on local event windows. Any 8 hour (in-game) period could be set (or randomly generated) and would shift by an hour every in game day (as the planet is moving in it's orbit, so does it's impact angle of the meteors), until the end of the event (24-48 real hours, 3-8 in-game days, preset or again... random)

The aliens themselves could pull from a sleuth of inspiration from movies... Sony... you got some licenses to lean on right? :groovy:

I think it is a recipe for massive lag cookies.

potentially for sure...

but this is still likely a couple years from fruition at the earliest, and hopefully our net speeds will have increased a bit more.

[Captain1nsaneo]

I can see that NPCs in the first form could work as random events but there's this fang filled maw in the back of my brain that wants to bifurcate things whenever the concept of NPCs in PS is brought up.

(Oh, and any changes you DO end up making, send them through a long beta test. Massive mistake the last crew made. Massive.)

[Zulthus]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

Pretty much what everyone else said. Yes, no, no.

If you're going to put any PvE content into a PvP game, please limit it to your first idea. If the events were very few and far between (maybe 4 times a year) then it'd be fine.

But NPC armies? I'm sorry, but that's just not a good idea. I play Planetside to kill and work with players players, not to trade/make robots to play the game for you. Think about it! Adding NPC armies to PS2 will be like adding BFR's to PS1. :eek:

[Toppopia]

Yep, that's just what people will want after spending possibly months of their lives, slowly working their way across a continent through a sea of TR blood and whatever it is that a vanu spurts out... Herpa derp im a alion and this iz all miyn naow LOLZ! Great fun.

That was sarcasm, btw. D:

We don't lose, we just let you advance to make you feel better.

[MaxDamage]

TL;DR - Be gentle with us Smed... we gamers are delicate and fickle creatures. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qpe2em3fk#t=1m

Planetsides appeal is pure PVP.
PVP is special, 'real' and satisfying in a way that PVE can never be.
PVE encounters during PVP may be very frustrating.
Throwing raid bosses in just to catch some WoW dollah however can gtfo.
Scripting will be abused somehow.

[Baneblade]

potentially for sure...

but this is still likely a couple years from fruition at the earliest, and hopefully our net speeds will have increased a bit more.

Doesn't matter how fast the network is if the server still has to control hundreds (thousands?) of drones as well as coordinate players in an FPS with locational damage.

[Revanmug]

I'd rather see Zerg type aliens then super powerful ones personally. If it isn't something that a player could take down one on one then it's going to kill the game. RPGs are built around the concept of super powerful baddies that require entire groups to kill. FPSes are built around very fast kill times and are a lot more "gritty". Alien invasion involving swarms of critters that you have to gun down as much as possible just to stay alive? Sure. Super powerful aliens that entire squads might have trouble killing, no way.

That scare me a little. MMORPG raid are build around that idea but not really for fps. Big monsters in a fps with hundred of people firing on it sound like :
-1 Stay a as far as possible
-2 Get an ammo pack.
-3 Point and hold left mouse button.
-4 move to another rock with ammo pack if boss(es) get close
-???
-Profit

[Electrofreak]

TL;DR - Be gentle with us Smed... we gamers are delicate and fickle creatures. :)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qpe2em3fk#t=1m

Planetsides appeal is pure PVP.
PVE encounters during PVP may be very frustrating, wouldn't rule out something if it was well thought out.
Throwing raid bosses in just to catch some WoW dollah however can gtfo.
Scripting will be abused somehow.

Haha! Perfect!

[VikingKong]

We don't lose, we just let you advance to make you feel better.
You already lost the day you signed over your free will and enlisted with the TR.

[Blackwolf]

I agree, but there should be some bigger, larger ones as well that do take some serious fire power.

TONS AND TONS AND TONS of lil swarmy bastards though

Also, I edited that 1 post... should also be incredibly rare.

Mechanically (programatically) I would see this done as a very very rare (maybe scripted in secret, maybe randomly generated) global event that once triggered lasts 24-48 hours, but actually does nothing but allow for common but random local events.

The local events would be the meteor storms themselves, and their size, location, and even qty and types of aliens would all be randomized. Certain factors programmed into the map different locations, as well as current population densities, would affect the different variables.

As I also said elsewhere, the 'face of the planet' should affect it, so only 1 continent at a time (or 1/3rd the continents), would have a chance at having the local event happen. In effect, as the different continents should have different current time of days to simulate their different face of the planet, so could time of day be used as a filter on local event windows. Any 8 hour period could be set (or randomly generated) and would shift by an hour every in game day (as the planet is moving in it's orbit, so does it's impact angle of the meteors), until the end of the event (24-48 real hours, 3-8 in-game days, preset or again... random)



Why random? If you were going to launch an invasion, wouldn't you put some thought and organization into it?

X number of small things per Y big thing which acts as a commander or lead unit. Y number of big things per Z great big thing if you want a larger scale invasion. The recipe works no matter what kind of aliens you use (a race of aliens that are similar to each other and pilot vehicles, or a insect like race where there are vast differences between creature 1 and 2 based on what they were born to do).

[AvacadoEight]

I just dont know how I feel about AI's. Planetside is a PvP game. I understand that going to attempt to appeal to other audiences, but this is not the way to go.

In the middle of an epic fight between the NC and TR, I don't want some massive powerful aliens coming in and screwing that up. Maybe if they did it right, and it didn't take both sides to focus on to take down, I'd be okay with it. But geez man, Im not sure.

And, on scripting. You know people with good scripting skills would get through exploit it. That is just ASKING for trouble.

[JPalmer]

I don't understand the hate for the aliens evasion. Make them not daily and make them so it is different every time. If there is a invasion set for a day, put a post online somewhere so all the people who don't want to participate will know not to.

The A.I creep things would work great with those Outfit continents you were talking about earlier. Outfits are not always going to have balanced player populations so the creeps would help a little bit there. However I don't think the creeps would work for the gameplay on normal continents. Plus you would have enough QQ to drown everyone in the SOE offices if they messed with the core pvp.

[TheDAWinz]

I don't understand the hate for the aliens evasion. Make them not daily and make them so it is different every time. If there is a invasion set for a day, put a post online somewhere so all the people who don't want to participate will know not to.

The A.I creep things would work great with those Outfit continents you were talking about earlier. Outfits are not always going to have balanced player populations so the creeps would help a little bit there. However I don't think the creeps would work for the gameplay on normal continents. Plus you would have enough QQ to drown everyone in the SOE offices if they messed with the core pvp.

hey dude i saw you in the stream :D

[Lafen]

100% PvP and i want my 100%

[Darthkorr]

no. Keep it PVP only

[TaintedPaladin]

:huh: <-- My reaction to NPCs in PlanetSide 2

[Majordopehead]

as a 4th faction with tries to steam roll all the factions yes...maybe once or twice a year other than that .....no sorry PS is a FPS 1st and a MMO second......

[super pretendo]

Honestly I don't see too much of a problem with cannon fodder robots, as long as its a special part of the game. Like, if a faction has a few centers, then engineers have the privilege of deploying simple automated ground robots with short range guns.

[SUBARU]

Just have one question,WHY?

[super pretendo]

How is there this much of a negative reaction to something that would actually augment the vision and playstyle of PS2, while esports, which is a full 180 from the MMOFPS open world formula, gets praise?

[Murkie]

Did I miss the part where someone actually explained why it was necessary to introduce PVE to Planetside 2?
When I first saw this I honestly thought it was a joke.

[SergeantNubins]

I'd go with the nc waves thing, if it was limited to one map only, but not across all maps. Its going to be a love it or hate it thing, and most people seem to hate it so keep it limited and it wont cause too much harm to those that really dont like it. I like the scripting thig.. cant really see how that would work as it would mean one person in charge of the waves wouldnt it?

Super powerful aliens.. actually of the 3, this is the idea I like least. I dont find it fun to spend an hour blasting a big powerful alien that has a million hitpoints.

[fvdham]

Replace with: NPC wildlife.

Maybe: dinosaur/dragon planet.

[Drakkonan]

I really want a PvE focused MMOFPS, but Planetside isn't, and shouldn't be that game.

It's just not worth all the work that goes into coding adequate AI.

[Celfoid]

I don't necessarily have a problem with the concept. I think I would prefer PS2 to be primarily PvP, but every now and then a few aliens to spice things up wouldn't be too bad. It shouldn't be a regular thing, IMO.. but a special event tossed in there every now and then.

Perhaps it could be coupled with any sort of change that may substantially effect the gameplay or meta-game of PS2. For example, introducing naval warfare by having aliens roll up on various coastline bases across different continents and just starting a massive assault, before the factions even have naval capabilities themselves. Have the factions fight them off and reverse engineer the tech or something as plot. Maybe the aliens have some kind of new experimental weaponry that gets added to the pools of each faction after they NPC army has been driven off.

I dunno, not really sure if its a good idea, just throwing it out there. But I wouldn't want consistent NPCs in PS2. The only AI I'd want to see everyday is that from turrets n' whatnot. :P Like in PS

[RoninOni]

Why random? If you were going to launch an invasion, wouldn't you put some thought and organization into it?

X number of small things per Y big thing which acts as a commander or lead unit. Y number of big things per Z great big thing if you want a larger scale invasion. The recipe works no matter what kind of aliens you use (a race of aliens that are similar to each other and pilot vehicles, or a insect like race where there are vast differences between creature 1 and 2 based on what they were born to do).

I said random or designed....

Anything designed shouldn't become too formulaic though

I really want a PvE focused MMOFPS, but Planetside isn't, and shouldn't be that game.

It's just not worth all the work that goes into coding adequate AI.
http://www.firefallthegame.com/

MMOFPS with PVE focus.

It'll have PvP, but it'll all be more arena like like WoW's, not warfare like PS2, so both have room to exist.

Red5 is also looking to be another excellent community focused developer, so I'm actually really excited. It's beta is out, so sign up.

It'll also be F2P with primarily cosmetic items for sale.

[brighthand]

I'm voting for the first idea only. Some random -BUT RARE- Alien invasions will add some more life and variation to the planet- especialy combined with other random events such as snow storms and heavy rain and such. All of that would enhance the the experience.

What would degrade the experience is NPC armies and other random, resource-hogging fodder. It would be highly unsatisfying not being sure if the kill I just got was off of a fellow human, or some place-holder NPC (look at Brink). And if there were an indication of it being an NPC, I would still be annoyed that the people I came online to shoot are in the base behind there, while I have to deal with these foolish toy robots first before I can get to them.

Idea 3 just sounds like muddy waters for an FPS. While this is an MMO in some respects, I would be leary of drifting too far from the FPS formula with player-created robots and such, as you may be tampering with your currently very solid formula. Soon you would have market places, and villages, and hotels and pets and all kinds of nonesense, when people just wanted to engage in all out epic WAR. IMO, if I wanted to play an MMO (an RPG MMO), I would have chosen WoW, or Rift or something, but I didn't; I came here to engage the enemy in glorious strategic bah-tuhL!

EDIT: as for those Aliens, can one of them be a giant tall Collosus thing with powerful death rays? I would love to see one of those just drop down behind a tank column, and unleash oblivion light, wiping out 1/3 of their forces, then look over to my direction and starts klaterring over to us...the meaning of fear would become clear on that day.

[Duskguy]

i would highly reccomend that SOE takes say a year of normal PVP only and sees how that goes while adding/ upgrading it.

THEN ask again about the idea of a PVE faction/ invasion.

it could be that the PVP only will tire out many players or feel repetitive and people may want a change. and there could always be a seperate server where people can import their character to and play on that would get these npcs/invasions while there are servers dedicated to just PVP.

[zoidsking]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

the first idea sounds good id say every 2 weeks for a 24-48hr period the day on week 2 being random so we don't know they are coming to keep things interesting. The other 2 ideas don't sound good at all to me and would ruin the player controlled aspect of the game.

[RoninOni]

I dunno, not really sure if its a good idea, just throwing it out there. But I wouldn't want consistent NPCs in PS2. The only AI I'd want to see everyday is that from turrets n' whatnot. :P Like in PS

I agree. I really don't want the alien invasion thing to be a staple of PS2... more just a side diversion very very rarely. And I really REALLY don't want combat bots/creeps DOTA style.

Automated base defenses and potentially deployable turrets should be the limit.

oh, and if harvesters are implemented... cause who wants to drive that?

So NPC harvest/supply convoys could potentially be added...

and maybe that AI could be player modified... maybe...

but I don't think that's really a big want feature.

Having raidable resource / supply units could add more to the game's tactical options.

Programming AI just seems like it might get ridiculous....

[artifice]

I would love to see a fourth NPC faction and the ability to have NPCs to supplement your faction's numbers.

[Partack]

@ smedley :

Oo..

well, i was all like,

D: when you were talkign about PVe stuff.. and i was like, no no no.

But then you said player- scripted AI and i was all..

'.... maybe o.0? '

[Kerafyrm]

I could see some starship troopers-esque metoer bug alien attacks that happen a couple times a year, and lasts for 24-48 hours (3-8 in game days).

I am liking the whole alien invasion idea but I do agree with others they should be pretty rare events. But like the quote above the events should be 24-48 hours long and maybe not even 48 hour that's probably to long for most people. I'm not sure about the whole bug concept i'd like a event like this to be rare and epic....something you would remember.

But in the end we own them and they go back to where they came from.

[RoninOni]

I am liking the whole alien invasion idea but I do agree with others they should be pretty rare events. But like the quote above the events should be 24-48 hours long and maybe not even 48 hour that's probably to long for most people. I'm not sure about the whole bug concept i'd like a event like this to be rare and epic....something you would remember.

But in the end we own them and they go back to where they came from.

It wouldn't be 48 hours straight...

there'd be 8 hour (in game) cycles during 48 hours (real time) in which they'd strike.... the cycles spread over the continents (matching their disparity in time of day).

And you could personally avoid it all together by simply avoiding whichever continent(s) is(are) in the path of the meteor storm at the moment.

OR you could jump from continent to continent as it moves to take advantage of ever hour of this rare event.

[Masterr]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

At first I was thinking of wildlife that you can chase and kill for xp, like a safari....but if NPC's must be in the game, I rather have the invasion option. The other two options.....doesnt add anything "epic". It would be epic to look up and see an independence day sized alien space craft that wrecks everyone.

But TBH....I'd rather have no NPC's at all....the wildlife is ok though. You shoot it and it runs away. If you chase it and kill it, you get xp. You shoot it so it will get out of your way....and continue to your base assault.

[Rarntogo]

I love PS1 and 2 because they are PVP. However... I played COH/COV and fighting a big nasty monster like Hamidon raids, Statesman raids were big fun. Killing these beasts could take hours. Fighting the occasional drop in bad guy as a group sounds like fun to me. I can see everyone piling onto one continent where this beast is trying to get the killshot on it. To some extent COV did have programmable AI but I'm not sure to the same extent we're talking about here.

[Braveliltoaster]

if its confirmed I'm not playing Planetside 2

[termhn]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.

The second idea is this. What if we had certain captureable buildings that when combined with a steady flow of resources the players had to pour in would result in waves of "creeps" ala LoL or DOTA that would go towards premade points in the world. So to attack a particular base one tactic would be to capture a nearby base.. capture the spawning facility and that would result in the NPC wave (again not thousands) moving towards a specific targeted base to attack.

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.

These are just ideas. I enjoy the feedback.

Thanks

Smed

YES a use for my programming prowess in a game :D Sounds AWESOME!

[Braveliltoaster]

I love PS1 and 2 because they are PVP. However... I played COH/COV and fighting a big nasty monster like Hamidon raids, Statesman raids were big fun. Killing these beasts could take hours. Fighting the occasional drop in bad guy as a group sounds like fun to me. I can see everyone piling onto one continent where this beast is trying to get the killshot on it. To some extent COV did have programmable AI but I'm not sure to the same extent we're talking about here.

this is planetside not AION. If you want this you should write richard garriott and tell him to make a new tabula rasa

[noxious]

The fact that they're even thinking about adding PvE is seriously disturbing.

[Halon]

An NPC alien faction could be interesting down the road. However I'm not sure about the empire vs empire DOTA style siege mechanic. I don't think having NPC allies stays true to the spirit of Planetside.

I think taking a continent and having an alien invasion event where all the empires have to join together and fight invaders could be fun. Grief system included. Say each empire starts from their warpgate and has to make their way to the alien hive/ship/base to plant explosives and blow it sky high, clearing bases and taking territory as they go.

Or for a mini event have each empires warpgate/nearest base get invaded.

[Rarntogo]

Dont worry, Be Happy

[Braveliltoaster]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/wp-content/blogs.dir/445/files/2012/04/i-19dcd1674ac61154723256c1de9bd8f0-facepalm.jpg

[Tzitzimitl]

Just to reiterate what people are saying. Yes to an alien invasion and no to the two other ideas smedly brought up. Now the alien should be something that is rare, perhaps occuring once a month. Although to be honest having it occur once a month for me seems to frequent. Also the length of it should not be 48hours real time but 2 game days is a bit more acceptable

[AThreatToYou]

Let the purgation begin.

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Why do we need NPC badass aliens invading us? We already have three factions consisting of actual people invading each other? Is it cool simply because it's supposed to be aliens? As I mentioned before, this is not likely to pan out well. As for player controlled NPC armies... This is just ridiculous. What the fuck do you need NPC armies for? So the idiot that can't make friends, that is too incompetent to rally people behind him, can still have "minions"? I'll swallow NPC invading aliens before I'll swallow player controlled NPC armies. I was very excited about PS2. Still am. But all this talk of NPCs is making me wonder...

-edit


Not to mention the following

In GoW3 forty or fifty unit hordes can't handle four or five people without being heinously overpowered. How many will it take to threaten HUNDREDS of players?

To put quality AI together in sufficient quantity will likely crash performance. High "active process AI" is required for an open world, like PlanetSide.

Alternatively, you either put HUGE numbers of "mindless drones" out, which is as cheap and pathetic as it comes.
OR you put smaller numbers of "uber" units out... Which is basically as cheap and pathetic as hordes of zerglings.

I don't see this idea being either feasible (for performance reasons) or good (for gameplay reasons).

[Heavygain]

I think his mention of harvestable resources kind of ties into this. While I really like the RTS style features this would be adding I feel as though outfit game play already satiates that and the people that want to experience that can and do via outfits.

[Papscal]

Ya know there is a point in which a game can be excellent and not need fluff like this. Stick to what we all loved in PS1 and you have a winner. Stray into the over developed and we all loose.

[scroogh]

You know how planet side 2 is going to have that battle log esque website?

The npc should just be faction controlled cameras that people can patch into on that website to see what the fuck is going on before they jump in to the game or when they can't.

Not very practical but neat in my opinion.

[sagolsun]

Not enough info to make a good call.

PS2 is fundamentally a PVP game. AI-controlled drones may fit well as long as they're designed as an extension of a player's arsenal, a weapon. They could fit a particular metagame role that players cannot - providing some small but nonzero level of protection against small enemy raids.

I also like the RTS aspect of it - however I haven't played the game and implementing it properly would be a challenge. Battlezone 2 is a good example of this being done right.

Aliens - I'm ambivalent. Storyline-wise I'd expect it to be a pretty short fight with all three factions ceasing to exist in a moment's notice.

Gameplay-wise it's a decent idea.

[vVRedOctoberVv]

I didn't go into much detail in my blog post. There are 2 separate ideas here. One is simple - Alien NPCs (the original Planetside design called them Shifters). They are superpowerful aliens that come in and attack everyone. There are a lot of special things about them I don't want to reveal right now but the idea is more the Alien Queen and not Zergs. So there wouldn't be thousands of them. But they would be nasty as hell.


EDIT on previous comment

I just saw Smed's comment... Apparently they are going for "small numbers of UBER" units, that way it doesn't kill performance. (sigh) NPC's are just a terrible idea. Not sure why more people don't see this. There are LOTS of games that do exactly this. We aren't off playing THEM for a reason. Because we wanted to be HERE playing Planetside, with and against other people.

As for the "Robot Wars" style player made "pets". THAT is not so bad... But it still seems somewhat overblown and pointless. Odds of the "pet" sucking are about 25:1. Thus... What is the value in your "pet"? Why would anyone buy it if it sucks? Unless it too ends up being a largely mindless "uber unit".

[Kalledorn]

No, just no.

I want PVP not PVE

[Reizod]

Once a year event maybe. But other than that... my vote is NO!

[AnamNantom]

It's an interesting idea, Smed. Since I know you play EVE Online too (I've been playing since shortly after launch myself) I would compare it to Incursions. But a lot of us vets are pretty wary about the idea of fighting npcs, even if we can control the friendly npcs after a fashion.

Sorry if I'm a little bit gun shy, but I remember the excellent mechanics of PS1 set into a downward spiral by the introduction of BFRs, which seemed like a great idea at the time. And, not to bring up a sore subject, but many of us also remember a similar gameplay-wrenching change in SWG that basically destroyed the game for many players.

I would suggest that players, as excited as we are to hear about many of these changes, would also be comforted to hear that the development of PS2 will remain cautious, particularly to the more... innovative development avenues.

In EVE-Online, the introduction of heavily-priced microtransactions and Walking in Stations (launched in a half-baked form without any player-to-player interaction) almost spelled the death of a game that has gone for a decade while only increasing its subscriber base and community loyalty. EVE's developers made a rapid change in development direction when its players made it clear what they wanted from the game, and I still believe it's what saved the game.

We all need to know that SOE will lend us the same ear. The problem is that we, as players, often are just as excited as you, the developers, when it comes to a cool new concept.

I could link a video of myself back in 2004 excitedly asking questions of T-Ray, CriticalMass, and Fisa about upcoming PS1 features (during PSUMA in Orlando, FL). Some of the ideas seemed so great at the time, but ultimately sent PS1 into a tailspin. Hopefully we can avoid that this time around.

TL;DR - Be gentle with us Smed... we gamers are delicate and fickle creatures. :)

I was a beta tester and there at launch for Eve as well. Walking In Stations was something I was very excited about, and still think is great. Kill the game? No. I was not one of those angry citizens of New Eden, snubbing my nose at "space Barbies" and shooting statues. I was, in fact, on a podcast, excitedly speaking of Walking in Stations. The Monocle-Gate stuff? I didn't care too much, but I did buy up some interesting clothing with the free credits.

My involvement with Eve has been fairly deep as I've pushed concepts and literally illustrated battles for many in the past. I'm also behind one of the most interesting roleplaying news/podcast sites.

Do I think they should have fully implemented walking in stations from the start? YES! CCP still plans to continue this... (even, player owned bars, and exploring derelict ships, etc)... but they should have completed this feature from the start.

With these new concepts Smedley has, as long as they involve us, plan it out and fully implement it, I'd be happy.

BTW, where is that video of Orlando, FL? I would SERIOUSLY be happy to know something Planetside related was there again. :D

Oh, wait, I found it :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvoaHWsO34c

After you and some others give suggestions, I see T-Ray saying that "the reason they hadn't thought of these ideas is that they needed to have more things like 'this'... " He goes on to state that having 500 players testing something is what's needed. I think that's why they are REALLY trying to interface with us in PS2, why they are having actual beta testing too. Good stuff indeed.

[Timealude]

im just gonna have to wait and see about it, im sure they would run and test it by us to make sure it would work.

[fod]

my thoughts (similar to a lot of others is seems)

"NPC enemies - I don't want to call this PVE. That's not exactly what we have in mind. More like a global invasion that goes after everybody. This isn't a bunch of quest givers saying "go kill 10 rats" - this is bad ass aliens that want to gut you."

at first i thought "no thanks" but this could be fun if a very rare event like once every 3 months or so on a single continent for a day (so others can play like normal on other continents) but as an all day every day thing i think it would get old fast


"NPC armies - imagine as the commander of a base sending an NPC army towards another base MOBA style except it's in the middle of the Planetside 2. This isn't another game mode. It's all part of the same game."

this would actually turn me off planetside 2 knowing that its not a pure PVP game, knowing every single player fighting is a real person is one of the things that attracts people to PS2

[Noivad]

Smedely just wants more then one Genre in PS1 = More money, and its not a bad idea. Other games do it. Project Eutropia comes to mind. A particular Sy Fi movie came out with the idea as a theme park, the movie called, West World - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld

Semedly has already stated that there will be more then the three Maps currently for the game. Forge light can handle XX amount. What if SOE made planetside a Map to cater to a NPC genere type player. That map would not have to affect the game play of any of the PVP maps. Smedely seems to want to also have a market place. A map that allowed making items that could be put on a global exchange would work, letting the tinkerbells make stuff for everyone based on their game play. You could even have one map made that would allow just Tank BFR battles, with little Infantry play. And a purely Infantry Map with no vehicles. You would then cater to different player genres, making everyone happy as they could play the game they liked to play. :evil:

Let the attacks begin.

[Antihero]

I don't like the idea of NPC TR, VU or NC..But I think having indigenous creatures in backwoods areas that come out at night in small numbers but are deadly ( Like Star Ship Troopers) would be way cool. It would make you think twice befor treading on foot alone in the woods at night!:eek:

[MCGKillerdog]

1, 0, 0

How about instead of an invasion force think Star Ship troopers Tanker bug, Dune's Arakis Worms vibration detection, and an npc that is a temporary game changer, and above all very, very rare.

Example:

Tech plant TR defending on the walls while Vanu are pushing inwards towards the facilities main entrance, mixtures of forces are pushing forward when all of a sudden a rumble on the screen occurs and a huge beast bursts from the ground (Star ship troopers tanker bug style) blocking the entrance and being a pain in the behind to those close enough.

So now you have the tr shooting at a vanu force out in the open with a creature blocking the vanu’s progress.

This has changed the plans for the attackers and their options are stay in cover/out in the open and pound on this creature till it goes away/dies (I prefer it retreats underground tbh)with tones of hit points (after all I’m thinking it’s a blockade not a death dealing raid boss) or go around it (by air unless it’s shielded or find another way in.

Say the creature doesn’t get shot at enough, and retreats, well that’s a bonus for the defender but in this instance why not make it appear inside the base and more angry, not only do the defenders have to deal with the attackers pouring in through another method, but there’s something inside the base too. Which of course the attackers might want to remove while trying to stay alive..

Again very rare, high population build ups have a chance to spawn this event, it brings some life also to the planet too.

[Graywolves]

Still no to the AI content.

Let players script the AI? This is all I can think of...
Automaton 2000 Micro - Dodging Siege Tanks - YouTube



I really don't understand why you want to put laning into the game either. I coule see maybe linking two facilities and having some kind of influence-esque tug of war but actual waves of AI just doesn't feel Planetside.


What happened to Players being the content and competitive PvP?

[Galzus]

NPCs do not belong in PlanetSide. It would be a waste of server resources and development time. Everything I shoot should be a player.

[Sledgecrushr]

A huge HELL NO for player controlled npc armies.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

Down with it as events, maybe as a competition where the factions fight each other as they charge in for some sort of attainable goal that gives the winning faction a bonus. You'd have incentive for pvp and pve at the same time.

[Ghoest9]

As an OCCASIONAL event an NPC invasion could be fun.

It could also be done poorly and just be a blight on the game.

[Smed]

I should point out the simple fact that I'm having this discussion before the game even launches and in my blog I specifically noted that we plan on releasing the 3 year plan and taking player feedback. We've learned our lessons.

In terms of some of the comments I've been reading (which have been great btw) - someone asked the basic question of why we would introduce these NPC armies. The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war. These NPC guys would be cyborgs perhaps or something like that. It's interesting to me that this particular idea is getting the response it is. This wasn't an idea that was high on the list. actually it was pretty far down. I'm just genuinely fascinated by the reaction. People have some great points both positive and negative.

Either way this one isn't on the high priority list anyways.

It's an interesting idea, Smed. Since I know you play EVE Online too (I've been playing since shortly after launch myself) I would compare it to Incursions. But a lot of us vets are pretty wary about the idea of fighting npcs, even if we can control the friendly npcs after a fashion.

Sorry if I'm a little bit gun shy, but I remember the excellent mechanics of PS1 set into a downward spiral by the introduction of BFRs, which seemed like a great idea at the time. And, not to bring up a sore subject, but many of us also remember a similar gameplay-wrenching change in SWG that basically destroyed the game for many players.

I would suggest that players, as excited as we are to hear about many of these changes, would also be comforted to hear that the development of PS2 will remain cautious, particularly to the more... innovative development avenues.

In EVE-Online, the introduction of heavily-priced microtransactions and Walking in Stations (launched in a half-baked form without any player-to-player interaction) almost spelled the death of a game that has gone for a decade while only increasing its subscriber base and community loyalty. EVE's developers made a rapid change in development direction when its players made it clear what they wanted from the game, and I still believe it's what saved the game.

We all need to know that SOE will lend us the same ear. The problem is that we, as players, often are just as excited as you, the developers, when it comes to a cool new concept.

I could link a video of myself back in 2004 excitedly asking questions of T-Ray, CriticalMass, and Fisa about upcoming PS1 features (during PSUMA in Orlando, FL). Some of the ideas seemed so great at the time, but ultimately sent PS1 into a tailspin. Hopefully we can avoid that this time around.

TL;DR - Be gentle with us Smed... we gamers are delicate and fickle creatures. :)

[adddemon]

...We've learned our lessons...

I hope this does not mean you don't plan on sharing your 3 year plans in the future.

Sure, this one rustled just about all the jimmies (on both sides it seems), but its still better than just not talking about it at all, right?

[Roy Awesome]

Personally, i don't like NPCs in Planetside. It's a very active game, with players doing everything in it. This game most excites me because its not a guided tour through the Planetside theme park, going on rides and never revisiting them. If something happens in the game, that is because someone else is doing it. If they are on the other team, it's your decision to go stop them. Bases can be captured and retaken and recaptured over the course of many weeks without getting old.

Why add a theme park on top of that? Is it something the design of Planetside 2 is really missing? Will alien attacks really add to the game, or will they be the same as meteor showers and earthquakes...something cool that the devs get to throw out from time to time. I'm okay with an alien beast being like a meteor shower or something (rare event, most people don't believe it exists), but I really don't want it to be a Event Boss like Guild Wars has.

However, I'm not one to shoot down ideas and not offer alternatives: Give the players something to fight over. Don't approach things as 'destroy and done' events, because that is very theme-parky of modern MMOs. Give us something we can place. 'AI' controlled giant moving bases are something I can really get behind. The team that owns the thing can inject an AI script that makes the machine roll around the map doing things, and the other teams have to try to attack it and take it over, injecting their own scripts. This gives you AI control and something that isn't 'Destroy and Done'

EDIT: Another thing you can do with AI, as you mentioned in your blog, is Harvesters. Have AI controlled vehicles drive out and start mining. This will give small groups and raiding parties something non-permanent to do, and still get to say you have AI in this massive game

[Helwyr]

No

Reasons: Planetside is pure PvP, taint it with PvE (and yes that's what some of this is) these features could be the thin edge of a wedge for future developers of Planetside2 to expand on in some foolish attempt to attract SOE's EQ player base. Next thing we know we have PvE raids, and EQ/Wowish type players demanding to be free of PvP interference and all manner of other crap.

I haven't forgotten BlackOps in PS1 ...please don't do that again!

As rare events that would be ok, but here I just question resources. Development time would surely be better spent on something that enhancing the game as it is played regularly rather than for some events that happen a couple of times a year per server.

Modifiable AI for player deployables has promise. Sounds like something the Devs can do in a future expansion for both Engineering and Hacking in the game.

[CountMeIn]

I'm doing targeted feedback threads on all items from Smed's Blog (http://john-smedley.livejournal.com/2412.html). This one is for NPC Enemies/Armies.





Thoughts!

Horrible horrible news.

Down with it as events, maybe as a competition where the factions fight each other as they charge in for some sort of attainable goal that gives the winning faction a bonus. You'd have incentive for pvp and pve at the same time.

That would be nice tho, like event days like in TF2! :)

[camycamera]

i myself LOVE the idea of an NPC invasion. it would be cool to have all 3 factions (maybe) unite together to stop this invasion.... and then continue to fight again. or, maybe it could turn into a 4 way fight. imagine it, say the NC are attacked by these NPCs, and then another faction could use this distraction to capture bases behind enemy lines, etc. or there could be some sort of "trust" system implemented. for example, if you dont kill the NC or vanu, and help them, the trust increases. however, if you end up just killing them, the trust decreases, and then you could end up with a 4 way fight, and not just a two way fight (assuming that all 3 factions were working together).

and that commander thing with the npc's sounds cool, but i dont know how it would work if they implement it. does each player command a group of npcs, or only a selected few? and i bet these npcs that you control would be some type of cyborgs... that would be awesome, fighting along side them/commanding them. but, like someone said before, maybe it could be like a moving base or something that cannot be destroyed (but it can destroy you, once a faction has captured it), but then when say, the NC capture it, the person or people who captured it can use it and pwn with it etc. then, how about the TR come along, land on the thing, go inside, kill everyone inside, then capture it and control it! that sounds awesome. if you still dont get where i am going, then i'll give you an example from another game: halo 2. on one of the missions, there is a giant scarab machine that could not be destroyed (but destroyed lots of things), so the chief jumps on top of the scarab, goes inside, kills everyone including the driver, and then it malfunctions and is destroyed. it would be cool if it was like that, except that it doesn't get destroyed, but it is now captured and controlled by whoever infiltrated it.

and of course, there should be an option not to fight the npcs for all those guys who are strongly against PVE. i for one would love both PVE and PVP, however. but a good example of a game that puts PVP and PVE together is of course, Dayz. you could avoid fighting zombies as long as you keep your head down, and then go ahead and blow another player's head off and loot their stuff.

the possibilities are endless for planetside 2, cant wait to see what they come up with post-launch!

[saltyorange]

I normally just read these forums to keep up to date with how the game is coming along but I registered when I read this because this would easily ruin the whole game for me.

If I get killed I want it to be because of something a player did, when I kill things I want them to be players.

I don't really like the idea of devs trying to make everyone feel heroic, not everyone can be a badass because if they were badass would become the new normal. It's really up to the player if they want to do something really cool they need to do something really cool. If I remember right part of the reason for getting rid of SWGs old professions and replacing them was to add new iconic classes that made people feel like the heroes from the movies, I don't think that worked.

It's pretty cool that they are telling the community ahead of time what they are considering though. Seems like the normal company procedure is to keep everything a big secret until they have already spent time developing it and feel the need to push it out even if people hate it because they spent time/money on it already.

This doesn't really belong here but going to slap it in real quick anyways. I really like the outfit bases on continents with rare resources reminds me of eve, really cool shit.

[RabbleRabble]

I'm ALL for an alien invasion. Face it, how many interesting events do devs ever do in an MMO? Not a whole lot. Usually they're very generic and predictable and not worth your time.

Having 3 factions repel a common enemy sounds a good change of pace, just have it occur like 2-4 times per year so it won't disrupt too much from the core game. I'm skeptical for most of the naysayers. Most of the community here I assume played PS1 and are too attached to how it use to do things. With the tech today I think it's a great idea to try these ideas, keep in mind PS2 is aiming to attract a wider crowd so an alien invasion scenario would spark interest in a lot of people since it's not something you ever see or get to experience in a game, let alone an MMOFPS.

[Smed]

Still no to the AI content.

Let players script the AI? This is all I can think of...
Automaton 2000 Micro - Dodging Siege Tanks - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs)



I really don't understand why you want to put laning into the game either. I coule see maybe linking two facilities and having some kind of influence-esque tug of war but actual waves of AI just doesn't feel Planetside.


What happened to Players being the content and competitive PvP?

not laning precisely. In fact that's kind of the whole point of the AI. Lots of different ways to get npcs from base A to base B. Maybe some fly. Maybe some stealth in.. etc, etc.

[LayZ]

The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war.

If thats the case then this game becomes more of an RPG. I think a lot of people coming to this game, both from the original Planetside and from other shooters don't want to play an RPG.

That sounds like the tag line of every MMORPG out there.

[RoninOni]

Yah, I still don't like the idea of AI military units.

Base defense turrets sure and deployable turrets maybe but the combat I feel should always remain between players. Defense turrets would require more than just a couple lone-wolfers being able to start capping a base away from combat... helps reinforce strength of defending.

I think AI could be implemented in other ways, such as the passive transport and mining units related to your other idea. Supply lines/harvesters on the other hand pull defenders out of the base forcing them to have more active defense lines (the better base defenses helping facilitate this spreading out)


Also wildlife and maybe (hopefully rare) alien invasion events wouldn't seriously distract from the game as the former is mostly just scenery and potentially adding to environmental hazards (also a great addition) and the latter would simply be more of an exception than the norm.

I also don't see much need for custom scripting.... as cool as it is in concept, it just seems to risky to exploitation

[Graywolves]

Me reluctance towards the AI isn't so much that it won't be fun or interesting. I just feel that Planetside 2 should remain PvP. When I die I don't want it to be because someone deployed an automated drone or a T-800 but because someone took the time to shoot me. I don't want to waste time shooting AI either, it could easily become just a nuisance.

On the other hand it could help the underdorgs or outnumbered players to have a better fighting chance.


I liked Drones in Killzone 2. When I think about those it feels a little more manageable but when I think about the scale and possible exploits it becomes frustrating.

I'd rather stick to fighting players.


-edit- Perhaps AI that isn't hostile? Scouting/recon droids? Think something similar to mobile motion sensors.

[HollowX]

@Smed: A BIG THANK YOU for listening to the community and taking our opinions to heart.

@Electrofrek: You are the SMARTEST S.O.A.B. I've encountered so far on this forum.

So here goes nothing.

When I tell my friends how excited I am for PS2, I start by describing the game this way:
"Imagine 3 teams of THOUSANDS of REAL players in ALL OUT WAR for territory on a MASSIVE continents XX times larger than BF, COD, etc.." <--This gets them wet. (*salivating)

Now here is what I think about NPCs:
"NO."

The #1 aspect of Planetside and the BRAND'S IMAGE is 'Player Driven Battles'.

Rare NPC Alien Invasions. "NO."
This goes against the brand of PS and will ultimately destroy the game's player base as BFRs did in PS1. Not even as an expansion pack on a different continent, planet, 4th dimension, etc. This isn't Anarchy Online.

NPC Resource Gatherers. "NO."
The year is 2845. Tech has advanced beyond the point of autonomous robots and drone-like resource gatherers. Every human hand available is meant to be wielding a weapon in all out WAR. No StarCraft resource gathering or Minecraft B.S.. Let us just fight each other!

NP Turrets. "YES."
In Outfit owned bases only, it would be neat to see the NP Turrets have an upgradable programmable option. Not sure on specifics, but the possibilities are exciting.

4th Empire Rising. "MAYBE."
It would be interesting to discuss the possibility of having a Player Controlled 4th Empire (Alien or not). This empire could be neutral and accessed by any of the main empires to be used for specific purposes. Not sure on specifics but I'll get my creative mind to work and write up something soon.

:groovy: Thanks for READING my FIRST post!

[RoninOni]

Yah, like I said, I'm reserved about the idea of even a single static deployable for 1 class as an upgrade.

Base defenses are slightly different... but they should not be more effective than a decent player manning the gun in place of the AI. The real benefit here is the enemy can't tell offhand how well a base is truly defended, and in fact leaving a few unoccupied would make for good warning (what the hell is the turret shooting at *look up* AIR RAID! man the guns!)

[super pretendo]

Just make NPCs a very conditional and limited advantage a faction can get; if a faction controls X number of whateverthefuck laboratories on the map, then engineers can spend resources to build an automated ground robot with short range weapons.

[Anabuki]

I think the best way to implement the AI/non-player entity idea would be either a very rare server wide event for funsies and/or deployable and non-deployable base defenses, like automated base defense turrets or patrolling machines that can spot infiltrators. They don't even have to shoot, just sound an alarm that's visible on the map when they detect a hostile presence. Not every base should have it the moment you capture it though. Maybe bases can slowly upgrade given resources and time held (kind of like EVE's sovereignty system), which will add to its automated defenses and fortifications.

[MacXXcaM]

PlanetSide2 is PVP only. It's important that it will still like that.

I wouldn't mind if this alien faction was indeed player controlled (give certain vets/outfits access to play them). Could be fun.

[Crator]

IF THE ALIENS WERE CONTROLLED BY DEVS OR PLAYERS then yes. Like a one off event like black ops that people are summoned to!

This pretty much...

[Phaaze]

Some reason I'm getting that Peter Molyneux vibe...

[HollowX]

Some reason I'm getting that Peter Molyneux vibe...

Haha! Funny, but I don't think that's the case. These devs may be trying to hype it up, but they are listening to the community. At least they better!!

[HitbackTR]

Was pretty dumbfounded when I heard about the idea of NPC's being connected with Planetside 2. Immediately thought why? If I want to fight boring automatons I would play WoW. Any consideration of NPC's being in game is completely unlike what I want for Planetside 2. Planetside 1 didn't need them so why would Planetside 2 need them. Planetside 2 should remain forever NPC free and always be about PVP. Otherwise it has no hope to be the great game that I hope it can become.

Let me reiterate the main point: NPC's in PS2 = Idiotic.

[p0intman]

Not my creation...
http://i.imgur.com/RLpcj.jpg

[Mattmatrix]

we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war.


But that's not the point of Planetside. We work together, we make our own heroes. We have commanders and CR5's that we hate but for some reason listen to them anyway.

We don't want to be the heroes, at least not because there are NPCs

We want to fight a battle with out comrades and maybe we will be seen as heroes on our server from our actions, but it won't have anything to do with us feeling powerful because of weak NPCs. Instead we'll hold bases against waves and take out 5 guys as the last one standing, allowing us to revive everyone before the next group comes in. We'll be the guy that get in the ANT in at the last possible moment and saves us from losing the base. The galaxy pilot that comes in and gives a much needed spawn point, turning the tide of a losing battle.

That's what makes PS so great. Players feel powerful because of their actions and the actions of their outfit. Anyone who played on Emerald back in the day can remember the horror (or relief if you were on the right faction) of an Enclave 5 gal drop on top of a facility that had 10 min left on the hack.

Power comes from teamwork and skill, not from giving us cannon fodder. That's kind of like the semi-attractive girl hanging out with all the ugly girls to look better in comparison. So not Planetside

[Justaman]

I'd be ok with an alien invasion. But only if they happened once every 1-2 weeks at the most.

That way, the average person will only see one every couple of months. Making it extra special, and completely unexpected.

Random time of day, on random continent.

In fact, why make it an attack? Why not just have them stopping at Auraxis to make some repairs to their ships/refuel/get some homeless guy to squeegee the windshield/w.e their reason. So they set up their own defensive position.

Make it nearly impossible to overtake it, but a big reward if we manage to.

Stuff like, single alien tanks requiring entire squads to take out (possibly with locational damage/wear and tear).



This way, whether a faction decides to try to fight them or not, isn't a huge decision, because its not guaranteed. It's sheer presence on the map would sway battle lines, just from people deciding to try or not.

[Rago]

Firefall is a Great Game, however i do not like this on Planetside.
Well in the End nobody asks me XD

[Heaven]

Aliens attacking... yes, but not very often!

and the other two ideas for me is a big NO!

Like its been said before, the day I get killed by a bot is the day that planetside2will die to me.

this game has been raved how its strictly PvP thousands of players vs each other, and thats how it should stay!

Just keep this game PvP dont go and destroy a prefectly good formula with a couple of ideas that could destroy this game, BFRs killes planetside because you thought it was a good idea... well you were wrong, a lot of people left planetside because of this, so please listen to the planetside community!

[Malorn]

Give us more PvP content instead. It'll last longer and be a much better investment to the game. People don't play planetside to go shoot stupid bots. They want to conquer the world and crush the other empires. Make that happen. Make that experience richer and more involved. Make more places where we can do that. Don't dilute the game with PvE crap that nobody wants and isn't what the game is about.

[Exano]

Yeah agreed. I remember when the bases auto turrets were a no-go because they involved AI, and AI is bad. Spitfires too for a while.


I like the player vs. player aspect of planetside. If something happens somewhere on the map, a player did that. When I shoot at something thats moving, its something made by or is a person somewhere on there computer, not a 300 lines of code making a bot come at me. PvP is fun because every single time its different, every time its against a person who can think and figure things out that no AI could ever do. In my opinion, these systems would get predictable and boring for the veterans, and annoying for new players, whereas a strict emphasis on PvP brings new ideas and playstyles constantly.


We're the heroes because we're constantly coming up with plays and tactics to crush our enemies. When a base gets captured, and we're overwhelmed by a strategic gal drop or a strategic play by the enemy empire, we know it was by them. The true players will get recognized as they always do. Those are your heroes :D

Its fun when you shoot a player and he reacts differently then another player. They all do, and THAT is what makes Planetside feel like the most epic war game made so far. A huge map, a war between empires. You can dogfight between 5 bases, while the front lines are fighting at a primary location and special ops are working to take out tech plants, generators and various resources for the enemy. All of this is being driven by minds of people, players, and not AI. That's what makes it awesome :D

[MaxDamage]

Let's get one thing clear.
If all games were operated on popular consensus they would end up like World of *cough*craft.

Why lessen something as brilliant and bold as Planetside by dumbing it down with PVE?

In Warhammer Online, PVP is crucial and feasible in the game from rank 1 to rank 100. Yet it is at higher levels that PVE raids on cities become necessary after the PVP campaign (assuming players are not present to defend) - due to instancing. Players routinely leave PVP city defence to let the dominant/greater side fight AI instances.

They would rather beat the more predictable PVE for 'rewards' than face the superior human forces, given a choice.

There must be no such choice.

[exLupo]

Let's get one thing clear.
If all games were operated on popular consensus they would end up like World of *cough*craft.

You have no idea how much power the PS official forums had over the game's development, do you? From adding BFRs to blocking dev attempts to get 3pv removed to gear added later in the game's life. The HSR was, with the exception of the Bolt Driver scope-settle, almost a perfect duplication of a player suggestion.

Listening to your player base doesn't magically make the game WoW. Sometimes it kills it instead.

edit: I can see why they may want to add PvE. Maybe it's landscape filler. Maybe it's like a MOBA and supplements actual player efforts. Maybe it's a reward and reason to get command rank. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with a game designed with that in mind but it would have to be an integral part from day one. PS2 is not that game.

[Malorn]

http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/13/blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake/

Here's what Blizzard's VP of game design had to say about Arenas
We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing. I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction.

This goes for ESports as well - having PS2 the massive epic game and PS2 the small squad esport will be just as straining as trying to do class balancing for PvE and PvP.

These two things will make for a lot of stress and the PvE & ESport aspect WILL affect the part of PlanetSide that people really care about. That's what we don't want. That's time and team energy not spent making the PlanetSide parts better and you're just sinking resources into making something it's not - that's a mistake Warhammer did and the result was that they half-assed their staple PvP story and put out an even more half-assed PvE story.

I am begging you Smed, do not repeat this mistake and instead learn from it. Build on the major themes that draw people to PlanetSide. Steer clear of PvE and ESports.

[Azarga]

I'd like to see _rare_ (once a week\month) invasions, just make those 'shifters' giant coe-staff controlled 'vehicles' with like 10-20 gunners or something like that, my idea is to avoid making those invasions ai-driven, as ai will be exploited eventually. It would also be nice if devs could come up with something other than 'one million hp' to allow the alien to withstand damage.

As it was already suggested make no warning when the invasion will occur, let it be unpredictable local event. Though I can still see some players will hate anything like pve, so perhaps they should have 'pure' servers without invasions.

Creep spawns, npc armies and customisable ai are great, just NOT FOR PLANETSIDE. So NO to player controlled npc armies, NO to creep spawns.

[GhettoPrince]

I'd like to see it, events are always the best parts of online games, everyone remembers them, and after 3 or 4 years of fighting over the same continents you can bet people will want the game to shake up a little, every now and then.

As I understand it, none of this will even be in development for more than a year, it's planned as part of the life cycle of the game.

[Malorn]

Here's an interesting case study on this - Alterac Valley battleground in WoW. If you played WoW back in vanilla when they first released it you might understand this. If not, sorry, hope it makes sense.

Remember WoW Alterac Valley? It was supposed to be a DOTA-like battleground experience with PvP and PvE intermingled. It was inspired by DOTA and even had a "Peeling the onion" design to it.

Do you remember how it changed? They scrapped nearly all of the PvE parts of it because what people really wanted there was PvP. It became stunningly planetside-like with capturing objectives king-of-the-hill style (the towers), securing respawns (graveyards), and blowing up benefit generators (Galv, Belinda, Vann, Drek). It's almost creepy if you think about it like that.

Alterac Valley went from having tons of PvE elements where you could "send armies" of enemies at people and ended up being effectively the sort of gameplay that PlanetSide offered.

PlanetSide had the right idea - players are the content. PvE is not engaging, it's more of a tedious hassle and stands in the way of the real engaging parts of the game - going up against real humans.

Going from PlanetSide to what AV was when it started with PvE garbage thrown in just dilutes the gameplay and takes away from the real fun in the game.

[exLupo]

I wonder how much of SMNC's staggering failure is the game's shoddy design and how much of it is FPS gamers just not wanting a MOBA.

Having played a ton of LoL and only quitting because the community is a toilet, I do get the appeal of the game type. Mixing f/3pv and RTS is occasionally popular (Savage, War of the Roses, WWIIO if you want to stretch it) so mixing f/3pv and MOBA sounds like it would go over well but between AV and SMNC it's not looking good.

PS2 is not the place for that experiment. Honestly, SOE should try it out in Freerealms, instead. I think it'd go over well.

[RoninOni]

War of the Roses has no RTS elements to it O.o

3pv yes... because for melee combat it just makes sense.

[Apathy]

Hello everyone.

I've been lurking around here more often now that I should be getting into beta as a veteran soon (hopefully). One thing Smed said struck a cord with me.

The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war.

Back when I was playing the original game, one thing that always stuck with me was the sense that I was just a drop in the ocean. I dont wan't to feel heroic in a game like this. I want to feel expendible and vulnerable! To me, implying that we're all heroes doesn't seem quite right. I always thought the "heroes" (a term I dont like using either) developed and became known over time through their actions. I'm sure we all had a time at some point where we saw a particular name in the kill log and thought "Great! X player or Y outfit has arrived!" Even when I topped my character out I still had those thoughts.

As to the NPC ideas, the invasion idea I can sort of visualise. I'd like to see this as a rare event as others have said. Perhaps a seasonal thing? Halloween maybe? Making it too regular makes it a more core part of gameplay, detracting from what was and hopefully is shaping up to be something pretty awesome anyway.

As for little robot drones to do the fighting, I dont particularly like this idea much. I wouldn't mind NPCs to do dirty work, such as fetching ammo, repairing base systems (assuming the bases have turrets similar to those of PS1) and gathering resources (tying in with the harvesters idea), but actively taking part in combat I think would be too far. One of the biggest ideas I loved about the original was that it was largely down to skill. I'd hate to be killed off because someone had a pet robot and some clever scripting or something. It was bad enough being killed off by some cowardly cloaker and spitfires / mines.

[exLupo]

War of the Roses has no RTS elements to it O.o

3pv yes... because for melee combat it just makes sense.

Oh shit, you're right. What's the game I'm thinking of? There's one out there where you control the map and then dive into dudes. Well, whatever, that's the idea.

edit: Google-Fu failing me. However, I think that concept is known more-or-less formally as Hero Mode.

[Lafen]

Its the next bad idea after the BFR's in Planetside 1

Its a sacrilege to the game to implement PvE Content

Why not implement more Battlefields like Seefights or maybe Spacebattles ?

[RoninOni]

Oh shit, you're right. What's the game I'm thinking of? There's one out there where you control the map and then dive into dudes. Well, whatever, that's the idea.

edit: Google-Fu failing me. However, I think that concept is known more-or-less formally as Hero Mode.

Published by Paradox?

I think you're thinking of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare.

Great concept but game is too buggy and unfinished apparently.

War of the Roses is a new medieval battlefield type game. Mostly 3pv because it fits the melee combat system so well, but when you raise your cross bow or draw an arrow and even lower your lance it smoothly shifts into FPV for aiming.

Awesome game, I got to get hands on and check it out at a tournament they held in San Francisco and played against Angry Joe and Total Bisquit.

Highly recommend checking it out.
http://www.waroftherosesthegame.com/

Its the next bad idea after the BFR's in Planetside 1

Its a sacrilege to the game to implement PvE Content

Why not implement more Battlefields like Seefights or maybe Spacebattles ?

Sea battles are confirmed. Seamless connection of continents via oceans already built into the engine, but there's still a lot of work for them to do on it so won't be at release but a future update (maybe as soon as 1-3 years?)

[exLupo]

Yea, no, I was thinking about WotR but also thinking incorrectly. If my other posts of the past hour or so are any indication, sleep dep and caffeine are fighting with vigor. I am excited about War, it looks boss.

[RoninOni]

Yea, no, I was thinking about WotR but also thinking incorrectly. If my other posts of the past hour or so are any indication, sleep dep and caffeine are fighting with vigor. I am excited about War, it looks boss.

Oh it is... you ever play mount & blade? (this is a different studio by the way, just same publisher)

Basic control wise it's largely the same, but MUCH tighter with far better 3d models and hit detection. Parrying with a weapon is now fully manual, and if you're using a weapon with a head (hammer/axe) you need to actually hit with the lethal part of the weapon.

Quality of hit is important too.

Lance charge was a bit OP in the build we played, but the ground fighting was solid...

also, being that we were playing it eSports style (5v5) instead of 32v32 over larger maps with various terrain (some prohibitive to mounted fighting) it kinda screwed that balance up as well.

[Sighpolice]

Ahh an invasion sounds cool, but it would ultimately be pretty gash. If it was a once a year sort of Christmas invasion, and every year you fought different aliens with different strategies then I could see that happening. Like for instance one race of Aliens could be infiltrator specialists, and each empire would need to find and kill the top dog to stop the invasion, and the empire that did that got bonus resources.

Then next year you had some heavy tanks assault your bases, where you would need an armoured column just to take one down (think war of the worlds?) and the empire that killed the most aliens got bonus resources.

If they are implementing naval, then the year after that could be alien naval ships, and the year after that could be infantry invasion (starship troopers bug type thing)

There is a lot of potential for it to be "good" but it needs to happen once a year, if it was a regular monthly thing then it becomes no more than a repeatable quest in a generic RPG.

[Emperor Newt]

IF something like this is implemented I'm in for the first one. That one is the only one that sounds pretty cool especially because it could interefere with plans of outfits/factions and change the course of war. Sounds pretty interesting and a challenge to adapt to.

But I really don't know if PS2 really needs this.

[SztEltviz]

AI coding :D Hell yeah!

Why we need ai in a pvp game? Because it will be smarter than average player.
Check out World of Tanks. It's a free, and FULL OF IDIOTS!
There are matches when i would replace my 14 teammates for only 5 ai that has a basic idea what the hell they supposed to do.

[exLupo]

re WoT+bots: TF2 did it. Bot filler isn't super popular but it's decent when used. Bots aren't rock stupid or poor shots, they just aren't creative. You can't scare them or piss them off or catch them doing anything surprising or interesting, they're always just as they are. Better than an empty server but I don't think PS2 will ever have that problem.

*knocks on wood*

[Tikuto]

Sounds like my sig. :rofl:

[Boomhowser]

One of the biggest lures of Planetside for me was fighting only human opponents in an epic scale enviroment and SOE nailed it.
Now the vibe im getting on this thread from devs is they are playing a lot of Moba like LoL & Smite etc etc & I understand thats the fotm style games but come on!

I just want to shoot other players I have no interest to go jungling on some alien boss, I would hate to be positioning myself for my snipe run, only to have a group of 5 NPCs run through me not fun infact very frustrating!! at least if that happens with enemy players you can hate tell them :p

[Sunrock]

I experienced a NPC faction in Aion.

(For those that did not play Aion I will try to explain it quickly. In Aion you had 2 player faction and a 3rd NPC faction. Some times the 3rd NPC faction could come and try to attack and take a PVP fort that the players had to fight off. This was to help make the balance between the two player factions so not only player faction could hold on to a majority of all the forts too easily.)

And in that game having a NPC faction really did not really work. The players would most of the time just ignore it and play around it as there was just easier to make them take the base and then take it back then it was to defend the base from the NPC attack.

This sounds really cool on paper perhaps but will just be a mild annoyances in practice IMO. For it to really work SOE have to build a really advanced IA script for this faction where the NPC faction does not act predictable in a obvious way. And I wonder if that is even possible without spending one billion dollars and 10-15 years of development of it. As they need to have allot more advanced IA then anyone have invented to date.

[Timey]

So, about a year and this game is ruined :] Seems standard SOE to mee, then.

[lLl]

Sorry if this has been proposed already, but as people have mentioned, i think an event would be a good idea.

There could be an alien race which attacks one area of the map. Then if captured would spread from this space out to the surrounding capture-able areas. This would force the attacked faction to suppress this invasion as they would lose territory, but more interestingly, the other factions could capitalize on this event to attack other points of interest.

In addition, capturing or suppressing the initial point of contact would reward a faction with high resources, thus negating any time spent being attacked on all fronts.

Although not everyone would like this, it would definitely make for some great PS2 tactics history lessons.

[Sunrock]

So, about a year and this game is ruined :] Seems standard SOE to mee, then.

QFT hehe :cheers:

[Marinealver]

The only NPC I would care to see is Spitfire turrets and phalanix with interlink.

Although the phalanix could use an AI update if you upgrade to AV turret or AA turret then it should use the upgraded turret when shooting at is intended target and switch to normal when shooting at other. As in the AA phalanx turret will switch to flack when shooting at aircraft and switch to chingun when shooting at Maxs/vehicles and the AV will be visa versa.

Now an option instead of NPC how about player controlled AI assisted drones and such to help out when the servers are at low population. I can just imagine a guy behind the base terminal controling a couple of UAVs to assist his squad defending the base while an infiltraitor goal will be to assisanate him before going for the ghost hack. Something to help with the area control and ghost prevention but nothing that could really stop a zerg rush, or assist one.

[SeanNewBoy]

Uncertain about NPC armies. I think the players shouldn't be substituted for NPCs when going against other players.

NPC enemy invasion might be a cool treat or event at some points, but not on a regular basis.

Exactly, the npc invasions as special events would be kind of cool.

[Electrofreak]

I should point out the simple fact that I'm having this discussion before the game even launches and in my blog I specifically noted that we plan on releasing the 3 year plan and taking player feedback. We've learned our lessons.

In terms of some of the comments I've been reading (which have been great btw) - someone asked the basic question of why we would introduce these NPC armies. The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war. These NPC guys would be cyborgs perhaps or something like that. It's interesting to me that this particular idea is getting the response it is. This wasn't an idea that was high on the list. actually it was pretty far down. I'm just genuinely fascinated by the reaction. People have some great points both positive and negative.

Either way this one isn't on the high priority list anyways.

Smed, thanks for responding to my post, and I really should have put something in showing that I recognize that you guys are making the right steps.

I was talking to Hamma yesterday about how impressed we were to see the president of a giant developer like SOE log into a fan forum and pitch ideas around with the players. I've never really seen the like, (though Hamma says the Firefall ceo does the same) so perhaps my post came across as too critical.

My cousin was a producer at Broderbund, so I've been intimately involved in the development process of several titles he worked on. (He employed me as his test subject and idea critic :p) I know how usually great ideas typically start out very ambitious and usually end up being a compromise so that they mesh well with other game mechanics, fit within development deadlines, and more or less meet the consensus of the team that will be implementing the feature.

I remember being shocked at some of the ideas that my cousin proposed, and most never became a reality. Of those that did, some turned out to work very well, while others did not always feel like a great fit. Fortunately there were few of the latter, as his games did quite well.

I guess where I'm going with all this is that we, the community, aren't used to being involved in this process, and people get real worried when they get the impression that radical ideas are going to be implemented exactly as suggested.

Personally, I don't think npcs in PlanetSide is a good idea. Perhaps there's a way to work it into the game that I would enjoy, but frankly I cannot envision it.

I think that AI npcs should be kept as an ace up your sleeve, Smed. We all love PS, but after a number of years we may see population levels fall in PS2. Who knows, maybe PS2 will be so successful it will spawn some competitive clones. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and all developers look for inspiration in other games. If population levels fall significantly, PS2 will need something that could pull a different niche of gamer into the game while keeping plenty of stuff in the game to kill, and this idea might be the right way to go. But, IMO, hopefully it'll never have to happen. :)

[basti]

Let me put this simple:


Add actual NPCs to Planetside 2, and you have a pretty nice Game of NPCs fighting each other. The players would leave right away tho, as you just destroyed a rather big selling point: Pure PVP.

We can live with static, automated defense turrets like Spitfires. They dont do much than shooting enemys anyway, there is no big logic behind it.
But actual moving units? Nope. Not as an event thing, and especially not as a permanent thing.

If i want PVE, i play Firefall (Will play that actually).

[basti]

we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war.

Stop right there.

IF that is your intention, make a Singleplayer. Stop trying to do the impossible. In a MMO, it simply not possible that everyone is "The Hero". Blizzard showed that quite well, as they tried hard to make you feel like "The Hero". But they failed, because you cant be The hero if Thousands of others are "The Hero" as well.

Whats the point if I saved the Galaxy, only to learn that it doesnt actually matter, because 5000 others also saved the galaxy, and even tho if everyone would have failed, the Galaxy would still be saved? Also look at WOW here. WOTLK, Ulduar: Whole story of the instance was about Yogg-Saron. Kill it, or it will destroy the world. Kill it = you are the hero, and get a nice little ceremony in the City. Now, first time he died you had this feeling of "yehhaaa", but mostly because you beat a pretty hard boss, rather than actually archiving anything great. Days later, some other group finished Yogg-Saron, and everyone saw the cerimony again. Some weeks later, the whole thing was nothing special anymore, and the cerimony happend several times a day.



Smed, you guys had it down once. Star Wars Galaxies, remember? All i did there was flying around in space, and loads of crafting and Harvesting. I never once felt like "The Hero" in SWG. Never touched the ground based combat. Yet, It was THE MMORPG for me, because i wasnt bombarded with "You need to do this to save XYZ, or else DOOOOOOOMMMMMM", but i was actually just a guy, living in his house, crafting stuff and talking with people.
THIS is what makes a Sandbox MMO (See Eve), not "Ohh teeh great hero saved the day, lets give him our daughters!"

[Boone]

No moving units, but like I said I wouldn't maybe mind to see you be able to drop down (similiar to the Engineer in the way they deploy stuff) walls, AA guns, defense turrets, things of that nature might work I think. You could always have to Cert in something like that as well. Make it either Cert seperately (wall, turret) or just simply a "builder" Cert of some kind.

You would just have to maybe either find a way to limit it with a long timer or make it really expensive. You wouldn't want the game to get cluttered/crowded from idiots doing random stuff, which they'll do anyway, but at least it can be somewhat controlled.

[RAS]

while i'm always up for new content and ideas how about NO ?
and while i'm posting if and when you get ps2 to great hieghts of ps1 i think adding new content / ideas should be put on the back burner

[Boomhowser]

"lets give him our daughters!"

Forgot what thread was about once I got to this part and realized I now know what I want from a game :rofl:

[sylphaen]

Aaaaah... So I get it now !

The mission system was actually for the bots, not the zerg ! Or is AI actually equivalent to a casual player's level of thought while he plays ?

Or did they mean NPCs to do the secondary gunning for your vehicles so they can truly fix that multiplayer problem ?

To be honest, I'm not sure what they are thinking about but NPCs in a PvP game is a slippery slope idea.

[Garem]

This would be excellent so long as there is a separation between standard and NPC-Army-Added areas.

Don't force something on the players- give them a choice, at least at first. If it's super popular, go with the flow. I do not see this being all that popular, but it definitely broadens the appeal and adds an interesting new element.

[Timey]

Also, Smed, you should really make a poll about stuff like this once the game launches on the official forums or something. I'd be surprised if those for npc's was anything above 8%..

[NewSith]

Also, Smed, you should really make a poll about stuff like this once the game launches on the official forums or something. I'd be surprised if those for npc's was anything above 8%..

I'll be surprised if any idea that is NOT from PS1 gets more than 30% votes right now.

[Timey]

I'll be surprised if any idea that is NOT from PS1 gets more than 30% votes right now.

Unsure what you're implying here. I'm for anything that's good stuff. NPC =/= good stuff, so I'm against it :]

[QuiCKaNdDeaDLy]

This Idea is worse then adding BFRs to the Game...
You guys should actualy focus on Removing the actual Problems with the Game instead of creating more Problems!

[Blackwolf]

I should point out the simple fact that I'm having this discussion before the game even launches and in my blog I specifically noted that we plan on releasing the 3 year plan and taking player feedback. We've learned our lessons.

In terms of some of the comments I've been reading (which have been great btw) - someone asked the basic question of why we would introduce these NPC armies. The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war. These NPC guys would be cyborgs perhaps or something like that. It's interesting to me that this particular idea is getting the response it is. This wasn't an idea that was high on the list. actually it was pretty far down. I'm just genuinely fascinated by the reaction. People have some great points both positive and negative.

Either way this one isn't on the high priority list anyways.

I play Planetside because I don't want to be the hero unless I deserve it. Other MMOs all try to do the same thing and this doesn't work. You can't be an individual hero side by side with thousands of other individual heroes. PS was always a gritty war to me, never an epic RPG where I fight the good fight for my faction.

Remember this is an MMO first and an FPS second. There is no RPG aspect to this.

This is also why you shouldn't have super powerful aliens as the invasion force. Keep it gritty and war like. Swarms of enemies that can match player count based on how many a single player could take out by standing still and shooting at them before dying. If a player can take out 3 without tricks tactics and strategy (or vehicles), make the ratio 3 to 1. It makes it an actual challenge to overcome.

[super pretendo]

Players should be the hero if they earn it and deserve it by doing actually amazing things that affect the dynamic game world. Like in vanilla WoW, I once won a 1v4 fight with equal level players on my warlock, and it was awesome. If you land a galaxy where you shouldnt be able to by using dummy galaxies to take the fire and capture a base because of it, you should feel like a hero. Not because you can log in with a pulse.

But I think the total "NO NO NO" disagreement with anything involving NPCs is silly; it can be done right, and it can be used as something SPECIAL, not daily, to shake up gameplay. What if when the vanu control two continents, it attracts alien attention, which causes some insane shit to go down involving NPCs?

Or once an empire caps every one of the whateverthefuck factories, their engineers can spend resources to deploy simple automated ground bots that walk and fire weapons on their own (but aren't as good as a player of course)

I see no problem with actually being creative about it

[Revanmug]

WOTLK, Ulduar: Whole story of the instance was about Yogg-Saron. Kill it, or it will destroy the world. Kill it = you are the hero, and get a nice little ceremony in the City. Now, first time he died you had this feeling of "yehhaaa", but mostly because you beat a pretty hard boss, rather than actually archiving anything great. Days later, some other group finished Yogg-Saron, and everyone saw the cerimony again. Some weeks later, the whole thing was nothing special anymore, and the cerimony happend several times a day.

For someone that saw that event soo many time, you aren't really good a remembering from which boss that came from...

That event was from Algalon which was unlock after doing all the keeper's hardmode and seriously, it got farm mostly after the first 2-3 bosses from toc got release. Ulduar was the last good tier of raiding they did.

Really, the only point you could have made is with easy to obtain gear and easy raid to make everyone access said tier of raid Like that, everyone can feel like a hero! But best to avoid that discussion if you don't want a shitstorm.

[PoisonTaco]

Part of what makes Planetside (2) special is that it's 100% player driven. When you see aircraft flying overhead, when you see a column of 20 tanks and when you see infantry charging towards a point you know those are all people.

I think if you added enemy NPC's to the core gameplay, you would take away from that player driven element. Even if it's still 90% or 95%, it would still remove the impact players have on the world.

Maybe if the idea is tried and we get to see how it works, it actually adds a lot to the game. Who knows, it could be a lot of fun. Either way this is a long ways off. Let's focus on naval combat first.

[Timithos]

At first when I heard about NPC's my immediate thought was guards. NPC guards could be used to deter back-hackers skipping from one place to the next - especially solo hackers.

But NPC attackers? No. We're the attackers. Like someone else said, the moment I lose a fight against a player due to being shot in the back by an AI bot, is the moment I quit.

How's SWTOR going? Are any of those changes being reversed by EA to win back the subscriber base? How about SWG? Did Sony abort changes that were losing subcribers?

So here's a question: If you go down the wrong path are you going to reverse down the right one? History says you won't.

[IMMentat]

Depends on the AI and depends on the frequency, number of enemies and target choice of NPC "invasions".

All things that are generally poorly handled, especially in n open-world game.

Generally NPC enemies are only good for target practice and proof that NPCs "cheat", they either sit still and accept large ammounts of damage like idiots or have pinpoint accuracy combined with perfect awareness and a reaction time of zero (all impossible for a human) forcing an attacking players to play a game of attrition (the choice between outhealing damage and terrain expoiting makes for boring combat in the long-term)

Global agenda did it reasonably well (PvE was robot security swarms against a 4 player team) but that was instanced formulaic heavily biased towards the players outside of boss battles.

[Gimpylung]

Oh please no NPC's or AI or PvE. As others have pointed out, there are other games that do that stuff, If I want to do that stuff, I'll play those games.

Please don't try to make PS2 a jack of all trades game, some PvE, some ESports, some RTS style harvesting. You'll end up with a game that's mediocre at lots of different things. There doesn't have to be something in the game to please absolutely ever type of gamer, coz you'll fail and please nobody.

Develop the games strengths, Planetside is known as being the biggest persistent PvP FPS out there. This is it's thing, it's party piece, develop this. It's what makes Planetside unique, don't add loads of incompatible stuff that doesn't fit coz those components are popular in some other franchise. It will dilute the experience and PS becomes some strange Frankenstein.

Lead the way with persistent PvP, make trends, don't follow them.

The only thing in the blog thats struck me as Planetside-like was the naval stuff and seamless transfer via water to the other conts. It's Planetsidey coz it takes the original premise of Planetside and expands its, larger scale PvP war with even more vehicle types and strategic options.

[Piper]

It is, to me, entirely the wrong way of thinking of what to add to an all PvP game after launch. It is first and foremost a dilution of raw gameplay.

Mostly however it will lead to the wrong kind of rankling between players to put sources of incoming damage in that are not player based. "Oh you only killed me because that bot got a few hits on me, if it wasn't there". Blah blah blah.

As Gimpylung has just said above, make trends, be bold. Don't put NPC's in PS2 please. Hopefully we'll never be short enough of potential targets to ever need 'em.

[dm Akolyte]

One other key point about them I didn't mention - they would have buildable AI that players could actually make through a scripting language. (forgot this part too) - Also you would be able to sell that AI to other players if you were an AI designer. Think Robot Wars or cRobots.



That is a *cool ass idea*.....

....for a different game.

[sagolsun]

Scriptable armies in PS2? I don't recall giving SOE permission to harvest my innermost secret dreams of a perfect game and implement that into PS2.

That said I think a lot of negative feeback is coming from people who don't understand how NPCs will be implemented in-game. There are very many ways to do it wrong and few ways to do it right.

I can see the immense potential here because I've played games like Battlezone2 or RoboWar. If our visions match, I can see this being a breakthrough.

The important thing here is to make sure NPCs are extensions of the player's arsenal - the whole experience of designing them has to focus on NPCs being self-propelled weapons with upsides and downsides, particular uses. It's fine if their use is pretty narrow too.

The other good thing about NPCs is that they permit the battlefield to be more alive with roles that would otherwise be too boring for players. Nobody wants to play a resource harvester, logistics or spend hours looking out for enemies. There are certainly roles in PS2 that could improve the game but would be not interesting for players to play. Here's where AI comes in.

And scriptable AI pretty much eliminates the problem of complaints about stupid AI - which will inevitably surface. Effectively using NPC armies will be a skill just like shooting your gun, just that it'll be about choosing the right script (or writing your own) and deploying them at the right time and place.

Just bundle a clientside angelscript/lua interpreter and outsource the coding work to the community. I'm giving it 2 years before we create skynet.

[RoninOni]

lol someone makes a self aware AI in PS2 that builds it's own 4th faction cyborg army

Anyways, I played Battlezone (1 & 2) and it was an AWESOME game I haven't seen properly recreated yet.

However, I don't think Planetside is the game for it.

I think they could MAKE a new game using lightforge and have AI and tons of RTS elements and stuff, and it would need (and in fact prolly do better with) much smaller player counts than Planetside...

but NPC armies just doesn't feel like 'planetside'. I think AI should only be used for base defenses and those harvesters if they get added.

[Baneblade]

Oh shit, you're right. What's the game I'm thinking of? There's one out there where you control the map and then dive into dudes. Well, whatever, that's the idea.

Maelstrom?

[GLaDOS]

Uncertain about NPC armies. I think the players shouldn't be substituted for NPCs when going against other players.

NPC enemy invasion might be a cool treat or event at some points, but not on a regular basis.

My thoughts exactly.

[Antihero]

But that's not the point of Planetside. We work together, we make our own heroes. We have commanders and CR5's that we hate but for some reason listen to them anyway.

We don't want to be the heroes, at least not because there are NPCs

We want to fight a battle with out comrades and maybe we will be seen as heroes on our server from our actions, but it won't have anything to do with us feeling powerful because of weak NPCs. Instead we'll hold bases against waves and take out 5 guys as the last one standing, allowing us to revive everyone before the next group comes in. We'll be the guy that get in the ANT in at the last possible moment and saves us from losing the base. The galaxy pilot that comes in and gives a much needed spawn point, turning the tide of a losing battle.

That's what makes PS so great. Players feel powerful because of their actions and the actions of their outfit. Anyone who played on Emerald back in the day can remember the horror (or relief if you were on the right faction) of an Enclave 5 gal drop on top of a facility that had 10 min left on the hack.

Power comes from teamwork and skill, not from giving us cannon fodder. That's kind of like the semi-attractive girl hanging out with all the ugly girls to look better in comparison. So not Planetside

THIS.

Oh please no NPC's or AI or PvE. As others have pointed out, there are other games that do that stuff, If I want to do that stuff, I'll play those games.

Please don't try to make PS2 a jack of all trades game, some PvE, some ESports, some RTS style harvesting. You'll end up with a game that's mediocre at lots of different things. There doesn't have to be something in the game to please absolutely ever type of gamer, coz you'll fail and please nobody.

Develop the games strengths, Planetside is known as being the biggest persistent PvP FPS out there. This is it's thing, it's party piece, develop this. It's what makes Planetside unique, don't add loads of incompatible stuff that doesn't fit coz those components are popular in some other franchise. It will dilute the experience and PS becomes some strange Frankenstein.

Lead the way with persistent PvP, make trends, don't follow them.

The only thing in the blog thats struck me as Planetside-like was the naval stuff and seamless transfer via water to the other conts. It's Planetsidey coz it takes the original premise of Planetside and expands its, larger scale PvP war with even more vehicle types and strategic options.

This too! Sorry i am too lazy to completely go through why I think AI soldiers are just a really bad idea for this game. If you want AI make some wild life or something, keep this game PVP.

[getembees]

Interesting ideas to be sure. I think they should definately be tested by the dev team to see if they are fun.

I feel skeptical about an alien AI. I imagine this "instance" style event should be kept as a relatively rare event if it is implemented. I would suggest testing simple AI events in beta, just to see how the sample of players react.

I'm also not sure how this would fit into Planetside lore. Are these aliens related to the "thing" that destroyed Pluto during the original wormhole? I kind of like how the 3 factions are unable to find a common cause despite the fact that they are stranded on this planet (much like current humans are). The game feels quite allegorical to me, and I would oppose the introduction of elements that take away from that allegory.

The "drones" might work better in practice. UAV's are a part of modern life, so it makes sense in a canon-sense that Auraxian armies could have commander-controlled drones piloted by AI. The orbital-strikes are a very similar concept that is very popular in the game. Getting besieged with no counters? Have the commander call in a drone swarm to distract the enemy, then have the infnatry storm out the of base for a counter-attack at the same time. I think that any drones should be nerfed down so that they require human-support in firefights to be effective. A drone-squad should not be able to take out a human squad, for example. But a drone squad supporting a human squad could be that small edge that helps you.

I personally liked the drones from BF2142. These hover-drones floated above the player who set them, and followed that player around. By nature the player wouldn't always deploy it because it gave away their position. Any drones in PS2 should have some kind of key disadvantage that prevents them from being over used. The BF2142 drone-AI were kind of dumb, but a bunch of them floating toward a base in PS2 could be trouble. A small force of hackers could more easily fight their way into a base if supported by a smart commander using these drones. Drone forces might also help delay an enemy counter-attack on a different front, giving human reinforcements time to make gal drops.

For the sake of believability, I think that the drones should resemble UAV's more than cyborgs. I just think that fits better into the Planetside lore of human-based content. Each faction's drones could be different in some way or another.

Again, I think that simple-AI should be tested in beta just to see how the community uses these things, in whatever form they come.

So to review, Im much more excited about drone-AI than alien-AI. I think that the drones should be a priority for testing, as I think that they could aid in human-coordination for the grand scale of the game.

[Hunterzen]

Like one person already said only AI should be turrets, and what ever gadgets require AI from PS1 you devs hopefully bring back to PS2. The idea of Aliens invading for a few days in real life time is ok I guess if you devs are set on adding this crap, but to me even that makes so sense lore, or game play wise.

[getembees]

Ideas on drone-styles:

TR: UAV-like miniature planes that carry machine guns. They fire quickly but because they fly instead of hover they must make passes on targets, giving players a chance to get into cover.

Vanu: Hovering drones that fire intermittent energy blasts. Since they hover they can stay on target but there is a long reload.

NC: UAV-like minature planes that carry rockets. Big damage with splash but long reloads and must make passes to fire due to airspeed. This gives enemy better chances to get to cover.

Just a quick brainstorm. In small numbers there arent a big deal, but in big numbers they could be effective at territory denial. Swarm the courtyard of a base or soften up incoming forces.

[RoninOni]

Wildlife would be cool.

all animals would naturally avoid any battlezone area, so they wouldn't interfere with battles, but in the woods and around streams and ponds away from the fighting it'd be telling to see wildlife going about. Predatory creatures may actually decide to attack a lonesome soldier or 2 that invaded their area, but would probably flee upon any serious wound (some areas could have some pretty big and nasty natural predators... they'd still avoid armor and battles naturally, but small infantry parties might look like a snack, and it'd take a lil firepower to actually hurt it)

Shouldn't be a focus, or really a way to earn XP (token XP, not worth time investment or even any risk. Slightly better than idling in HQ) or anything else really. more of a hazard of trying to sneak around off on your own. Nuisances and just scenery really, nothing more.

Maybe something to shoot at as you convoy. (which a patrol farther away may see animals running from, or come across dead animals telling of a convoy that passed through :P Fire discipline's a bitch ain't it?)

[Crator]

lol someone makes a self aware AI in PS2 that builds it's own 4th faction cyborg army

Ok, that's actually a cool concept for a game. Not PS2 though I don't think.

[Sledgecrushr]

After reading everyones posts, I have to say my vote is for wildlife only. Npc armies and even npc invasion probably wouldnt be done well enough to warrant the effort to deviate from PS2's core gameplay. Killing bots in a pvp game wouldnt be that fun for me.

[NewSith]

Ok, that's actually a cool concept for a game. Not PS2 though I don't think.

Yeah, more for a game like "Skynet Gameover Simulator"

[sagolsun]

Yeah, more for a game like "Skynet Gameover Simulator"

I fail to see how could that possibly be a bad thing.

[Talented Maori]

No, please please please NO!

[Slasherz]

No, please please please NO!

What he said.

[Archonzero]

AI Harvester units, I could accept something like that, even some notable NPC natural fauna (wildlife)



Full blown NPC armies (whether alien or faction based) Not interested, I think it would severely hinder the open world FPS player driven concept of the game.



Dev controlled dynamic event random attacks/fullblown invasions. Hmmm. That could be entertaining for all participants.

A DEV/SOE controlled/player faction could be sort of drone based entity. Where the DEV/SOE controlled unit has a squads of (or more) AI controlled NPC units, that follow commands akin to any single player controlled NPC group.

If this were a possible idea, I'd really opt for them utilizing control of multiple drone squads (a platoon worth of mixed units) each a squad of 6 (more or less), depending on the overall unit mix archetypes.

While the DEV/SOE controller unit would have to be immensely resilient, simply to weather large numbers of players and combined arms attacks. They would have to be equipped with reasonably powerful weapons. Some alien tech with a high dmg output multiplier to the other faction standards (x2/x4/x5) for damage output. A combined arms sustained attack would be required to pin down a controller in order to eliminate it, an doing so would disable any drones controlled.

Once eliminated these controller units could drop a LLU (see PS1's Lattice Link Unit) style item, which would act as an active football (with a countdown timer) and would need to be secured then taken to a friendly designated base in order to get credited with any personal and faction reward(s). This football is up for grabs by anyone faction, regardless of the current controlling carrier.

There should always be a few sets of rewards for the recovery of such an object, one would be a personal reward to the carrier, two would be a squad/platoon based reward and the third would be a faction based reward . These rewards could be item/gear/faction specific unlocks, which could be any number of additions, upgrades etcetera.

The wider faction based reward would have to be something low key and time based (ie 24/48 hours or even a week long duration) slight increase to things like regeneration of health/armor, slight tweaks to weapons, ROF, dmg, recoil, reload times, etcetera. Multiple recoveries could see multiple stacks of the same benefit to a "hardcapped" limit.

Making them also sought after by rival factions, this could lead to air cavalry groups quickforming to spearhead behind lines to intercept an LLU package to secure it for their own benefit, once they're taken down, the drop off point would obviously switch to a base of their own faction control.

Also if they try this idea out/or entertain it. These controlled NPC invader, could be the aliens that the VS got their tech from, or perhaps another alien culture that is seeking to seeking to steal the tech for themselves. Mayhaps BOTH! A little variation, scavenger alien mercs, formerly subjugated aliens seeking revenge on the progenitor aliens (or AI minions of) of the VS re-engineered tech, etcetera.

Why limit the idea to simply one type of NPC invader.

[Sledgecrushr]

I love the idea of bringing auraxis to life with animals. Other than that the only predators should be the players.

[Toppopia]

The only ai we need is ones that defend bases against lone hackers so 1 person can't troll the enemy. But should be beaten by a group if 10-20 people

Or random animals that squish beneath my Prowler

[psychobilly]

After reading everyones posts, I have to say my vote is for wildlife only. Npc armies and even npc invasion probably wouldnt be done well enough to warrant the effort to deviate from PS2's core gameplay. Killing bots in a pvp game wouldnt be that fun for me.

This.

[starshine]

i don't think player controlled/spawned NPCs are a good thing, but random ones like alien invasion sounds good!

[Tuoweit]

I truly understand the desire to include every cool idea into the game, but focus and consistency are important qualities in a game too. The downside of having "something for everyone" is that the more divergent elements you have incorporated, the greater the chance that any one given person is going to find something they actively dislike, and that becomes a reason NOT to play. Sometimes that really cool idea would just make a mess of your already-really-cool game, and would be way better off in its own game.

My first thought on adding NPCs is to cringe, because there are so many ways it could go wrong. Warhammer Online, for example - While PvP was fun in that game, after an initial lovefest of good PvP the endgame ended up being "let's swap NPC-held bases endlessly for moar lootz," because fighting NPCs is *always* easier than fighting other players. The Secret World also risks heading in that direction.

So, rule #1 for (predictably spawning/spawnable) NPCs in a PvP game - make them WORTHLESS for experience/resources. Zero. No inherent incentive to fight NPCs. Taking a base held only by NPCs should be the same reward as taking an empty base. Anything else is (more) likely to be abused.

NPC invasions? I'm trying to imagine a scenario where I'm playing Planetside 2, in the middle of doing whatever it is I'm doing, and being happy at being interrupted by an alien invasion. While it may well be fun, I'm probably already having fun, and might resent the interruption. Would it be more fun? Yes? Then why aren't we doing that all the time. No? Then why change what we're doing already. It sounds like two different games to me. Granted, sometimes you want a change of pace, but fighting NPCs in an FPS and fighting other players in an FPS are a little too similar IMO to qualify. (Same for the zombie idea you mentioned. And some of us are not zombie fans. :))

Scriptable AIs does sound like a change of pace though, maybe there could be a continent (or moons?) which is contested *only* by bots run by scripts? An area with an environment too hostile to send in the troops but still containing valuable resources. I could see that potentially working, as long as it doesn't overshadow the main part of the game. One potential danger, with tradeable scripts, is that that one amazing script programmer (by passing out his scipts to everyone) may come to dominate for his side. While amazing commanders can help dominate as well, everyone has to log off at some point, but scripts don't.

Another option might be some kind of (single) programmable combat drone that you could spend resources on, much like a vehicle (by having it cost resources there's a vested interest in getting your "money's worth" out of it, and not as likely to be abused - at least, not any more than vehicles). Maybe as a sniper you'd want one watching your back (or maybe it would give away your position). Maybe you'd want one for breaching heavily guarded areas like generator rooms (if something analogous exists in PS2). I could see a number of uses for one. Sounds kind of engineer-oriented. They'd probably be hackable, like most other equipment. And I can imagine programming one to blow up if the owner is within hacking distance, as a booby trap ;)

AI Harvester units, I could accept something like that, even some notable NPC natural fauna (wildlife)

I didn't think very highly of the resource harvesting idea. Sure, it adds some depth to the collecting of resources, and something else for players to attack besides bases, but would harvesting be any fun for the harvester or just a mandatory time sink? If it's more analogous to occasional ANT runs to fill up a station's NTU tank, then that's reasonable, but at least with NTU tanks they don't deplete if there's no activity at the base (unlike, say, processing raw resources to produce faction resource income - those would need to be topped up all the time, and be more like a maintenance time sink.)

But Archonzero's idea of automated NPC harvesters sounds workable. It gives players something else to attack and defend, but automates the actual tedium of the harvesting. That said it shouldn't be possible to completely shut down an empire's resource income solely by taking out harvesters and ignoring the bases. The main hurdle I see is to come up with something that can't simply be constantly shut down 24/7 by one squad of 5-6 guys in Reavers roving behind enemy lines. Unlike EVE Online, there's no gates you can guard to keep enemies away from your mining ops.

[JoCool]

No PvE. Just NO.

[Hosp]

No PvE. Just NO.

This.

[Kitaz]

Have to say no on this one, only npc's i wouldn't mind are maybe critters to give a sense of life on the planet.

[Mongo]

No PvE. Just NO.

This as well.

Just spend the resources on devving different ways for players to kill each other - water or space combat?.. instead of introducing that which detracts from the core game.

If I want to play single player I will go elseware, if I want to play against people I will play planetside, If I end up fighting NPC's I'll log, something tells me you dont want people logging ... amrite?

[LongBow]

NPC's in Planetside, my immediate reaction is “wut?”, then I remember its an intelligent team behind the game and that Smed is sharing a 3YP with us before the game is live!

--------------------------------
NPC invasion:

no thanks, its a great idea its just not part of the Planetside formula.

--------------------------------
NPC harvesters

“A wild secondary objective appears” … yes please! Section 8 has shown what an improvement this can make to 'liven up' game-play, please take this idea further.

----------------------------------
Player controlled AI forces

interesting, but what difference is there between a building that spawns AI that march from A to B and a building that lets you carry a player controlled turret from point A to B? In both cases you create a static target priority (AI, AA or AT) in both cases you choose how you get to point B and in both cases players can make “armchair general” type decisions with immediate responses; in fact the only difference I see is that one is done by players and the other by AI.

----------------------------------
Player Created AI

Personally I'm inclined to like this. However because the tough part in AI is having them make “human” mistakes there is little to no “market” for winning AI.
At the end of the day we are just going to have access to a state engine; within two days, my outfit will have V1.0 of our AI and that will be that.

If anything the only difference is going to be the ratio of AI:AT:AA and that will be moment to moment.

=============================

The "Hero" complex is a single player design concept, its something we look past in "archaic" multiplayer RPG's its not something to idolise.

In single player your the hero, in multiplayer your a champion... and that is something better conveyed by the weight of your mighty vanguards tread than any cannon fodder.

[DarkMesa]

The only way I would be able to stand NPC armies, is if they only appear when any one faction completely takes over a continent, and they only appear on that continent.

Possibly make them enough of a challenge to act as something that multiple factions team up against, for however long that would last.

[Memeotis]

I'm actually okay with it, but like Blackwolf said, it should be an occasional event. I think it could be a nice way to neutralize territory and challenge the status quo of territory distribution.

[brickbuster]

No. If these suggestions were implemented, I would stop playing the game. Already too many design mistakes have been made in Planetside 2, and adding these would be the equivilant of how SOE ruined SWG. It is unfortunate that SOE has developed a reputation as a "hit and miss" company, and adding any sort of AI to a 100% PVP game would solidify that reputation like nothing else. I don't mean to offend the devs, but this is the truth of things.

[Quantum Spices]

I would love a "4th faction" of enemies, as long as they are NOT the main source of xp or resources. If they are done right, they will be a great addition to the game.

[Quad]

My reaction to even the thought of NPCs in planetside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFGfWrJR5Ck

[VikingKong]

Indeed. Well said, that man.

[KIAsan]

This idea needs to be quietly strangled, chopped to small bits, doused in gas, lit on fire, then have it's ashes shot into the sun so we are sure it's dead.

NPCs would be like the old Oshur comet strikes, something you do to try and bring interest back into a dying game.

[PoisonTaco]

Well Team Fortress 2 is adding NPC enemies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4cfo0f88Ug

I mean at first I was like, "What is this? I don't even..." Now I think it looks really interesting. Who knows it could be cool in Planetside 2 as well.

[MaxDamage]

My reaction to even the thought of NPCs in planetside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFGfWrJR5Ck
Caesar Says No - YouTube
I was watching one of Hamma's videos, where he's on an ATV riding through what looked like vast open desert.
Wouldn't say no to the odd random space-lizard.

But please no cliff-racers.