PlanetSide Universe - View Single Post - Cont Lock finally?
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Old 2014-06-01, 11:21 PM   [Ignore Me] #34
Mordelicius
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Re: Cont Lock finally?


Originally Posted by Muldoon View Post
Personally I disagree with a lot of your post, but this was the biggest one I disagreed with. There are lots of new players playing Planetside each day, and are learning how to play. The game is already really hard to learn, and having a new player blow up on a vehicle pad is a quick way to getting them to uninstall. Without new players, the game dies.

Call it hand holding or what have you, being able to place mines on the vehicle pad is one of the cheapest things you could do and added very little to the game.
I don't recall using the term holding hands, nor it's in that spirit lol.

Think of another game, say, basketball. A referee would draw random circles on the ground where offense can't step on. After watching the offense dance around like clown just to get off a shot, the ball changes hands and now it's the other team to do it on the other side.

Now, would I call that 'holding hands'? Would you call it holding hands? My guess, no. What I would call it is gameplay degradation, increased predictability, messed up flow, unnecessary rules and overall an overreach by the officials.

Now, back to Planetside 2. The No Deploy Zone does the same. Anything and everything that can happen when a basketball player steps on the circle will NEVER happen because it is prohibited. Anything and everything that can happen when a Sunderer parks in that zone will never happen because it is prohibited.

So, If I drive a Sunderer in a risky desperation move to park and nail it on a side of a wall, under fire inside NDZ will never happen. And any and all chain of events happening as a result will never happen EVER! That's my point about reducing gameplay variety and unpredictability.

It's a simple rule of reciprocity. Defenders are allowed to park Sundies, hence offense should be allowed to park. Defenders use shotguns, offense is allowed shotguns, etc etc.

Secondly, about the mines on the vehicle pad (and I understand how important the newbies are). I believe there are far worse things in PS2 than that and most of them involve gameplay balance. It's something we've been warning the Devs since the beginning. Example: (Dec. 17, 2012 http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...000#post868000)

Originally Posted by Mordelicius View Post
Faction balance first before promotions.

Gameplay balance first before promotions.

They may lure in alot of new players but all these imbalances will simply enfuriate them.

Faction balance - Overpowered Vanu camps Esamir so they can spam overpowered Magriders. NC and TR leaves for Indar. whoever is losing that fight goes to Amerish. So you got a 3 different faction concentrated on 3 different continents. Then, all 3 factions will switch continents for easy capping on empty bases, rinse and repeat.

Gameplay balance - Air units need to be nerfed or be more expensive. I've never used air units before because I prefer infantry, but these units get too much kills and advantage.

Small/Medium base spawn rooms needs retooling to allow infantry to get out and not get farmed by air or mechanized units as soon as they step out. Give them 3 double-width doors. Open up the roof with shields so players shoot the hoovering aircraft right above the room while their nose is pointing just outside the door.

They can grab all the players they can with these promos but they will simply leave once they realise the game balance is out of whack.
I think it is exaggerated how these mines affect newbie experience. Most of the vehicle pads are located about 5 feet from the console. I assume most players have use of at least one eye. And it's no different that laying AI mines on stairs or doorways.

Instead newbies are leaving because of gameplay imbalances: The Zoes, the lolpods, the Harassers, the Prowler HEs of yesterdays etc etc. Newbies are also leaving because the Developer solutions eschew the basic gameplay, such as allowing Sunderer spawn to wipe easily, coming from the buffed Liberators and is the main reason why stopped logging on (http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=58093).

But, I'll give an example of a current imbalance that the Devs are trying to solve heavy-handedly (same way as the NDZ, vehicle pad, jump pad solutions). It's Sniperside. Before Sniperside, Snipers are this way:

Ranged advantage + low Detection advantage (stealth) + Can't 1-hit

After much circle-jerking at the official forum, the Developers decide to change Sniper abilities. And despite warnings of how they are being gamed (read, I'm referring to Sniper posts at the official forum btw: http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...199#post948199 )

Originally Posted by Mordelicius View Post
[COLOR="DarkOrange"]

...SNIP...


Nanoweave and Snipers


- I'll wait for the actual post, but these Snipers complaining about nanoweave want low risk/high reward situations. Snipers are already kill-streakers. The current system is fine. All these guys do is deploy spam until they get to a high cliff, high mountain, high building, top of tower, top of antenna, top of tree, then snipe with impunity with very low risk and high rewards. And they still want some more?

They don't need to fix what's not broken. All these buffs to Vulcan, HE etc. weren't necessary at all in the first place. All they did was break stuff for months. Just go to any Youtube videos of Snipers killing nonstop and you'll see there's nothing to fix.
Despite that, the Snipers are changed to:

Range advantage + low Detection advantage (stealth) + 1 hit kill head shot.

Hence, this crazy, advantage has been used to farm newbies. What's the Dev solution? Death Screen. In a similar vein as the NDZ and such, it encroaches unnecessarily on player gamespace. It's not player action that is telling where people are, but the Dev indirection action.

A better Sniper solution would be simple, well thought balance pass: Remove stealth ability from Snipers!

Finally, I reiterate that this is a philosophic battle whether the Devs should jump in or keep their hands off gameplay and leave player interactions to just the players. I still say that all the former does is make Planetside 2 fights less exciting and more bland and cumbersome.
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