THIS IS A WALL OF TEXT FOR SOME, BUT I THINK YOU MIGHT AGREE WITH IT
I have seen this proccess develop in more than one of my choice shooters: A game that was deep and rich and required the player to learn to balance all by himself on the waves of the steep learning curves- and reap the great rewards once accomplished, has its core features ripped out of it, like William Walace on the eviscerator, in the name of profit.
Killzone 2 on ps3 was a game I enjoyed thoughroughly and it only gave the kill to the higher-skilled player. There was no aimassist, and no killcam/kill streaks. Spawn points were determined by a smart (or dumb) tactician- but an autonomous tactician. Thinking and options were offered to the player.
Killzone 3 took away all of those things, and replaced it with simplified mechanics and static spawn points so that the supposed mental strain of deciding where to place spawn points would be lifted from the 'new modern FPS player,' freeing what few brain cells he may have remianing to be allocated to the most important thing....killstreaks
This is one example. I am not going to get into what happened to Battlefield with bf3; many of us already know, and that is why we are here, looking to YOUR game, Planetside 2.
All of the creativity, the emphasis on skills, and the tactical pacing and planning seems to have been drained out of many of our games these days, and I find myself like a nomad, ever searching for that one game that didn't cave to the masses; that in the face of a flood of demand for mediocrity and genercness on the part of the 'new generation of gamer,' would stand firm and say 'NO, this is our game and you will learn how to play it or you will leave.' So far, I have seen no game do that. I thought bf3 was going to be it- I was prepared to spend years playing a good next-gen tactical shooter, but it turned out to be COD with vehicles.
I would venture to say that the people taking note of your game, are other people like me; the people who have lost a taste for the other games that are out there. Said another way: the masses aren't looking at your game, because they are too busy lapping up everything that EA and Activision are feeding them. The majority of players will stick to their premium and elite subscriptions, and like it, but there is a minority of us who have higher standards and are very willing to throw our dollars/euros/sols/crowns/pounds/pesos/shells at you for a game UNLIKE the 'modern shooters' that we have been encountering frequently throughout this generation.
So with this understanding I ask this: that you please...PLEEEESE be that oaisis of old-school, difficult and tactical gaming that I have been wandering the vast expanses of a dillouted FPS desert for. There are many others like me, and I am not sure that you guys understand how thirsty we are for something genuinely unique, creative, oozing with passion and above all, faithful to its roots.
I never played the first Planetside, but I have done quite a bit of research on it, and from what I have discovered, this game -if left untampered- will be the game of the decade. I do not propose any changes myself, as I feel I am in no position to make such proposals; Only the vets who have played the game for years should have that chance; they know what makes a great battle in planetside.
If anyone over there is plotting to look at charts and trends data for FPSes, march into that office immediately, set fire to those documents and promptly throw the offending analyst out of the nearest window.
The charts and trends data will tell you the following:
easier kills = more sales and more money
significantly less waiting = more sales and more money
in game aids such as 3d spotting = more sales and more money
emphasis on killing = more money
simplified tactics if any at all = more sales and more money
kill streaks...kill cams....faster and frequent spawning....
all kinds of rubbish = more sales and more money.
DICE, and Gurilla Games OBAYED those trend data sheets, and as a result, their original fanbase assuredly are searching for other games to play and won't be supporting them again -unless perhaps if they cleaned up their act- which is unlikely.
I am one of those millions of the minority who despondently left a game that I thought would be great but was a dud, and happened to discover your game; and my hope is that this game truely is a new Planetside, and not Battleplanet 2: Easy Ops.