So.. I'm going to SOE Next week. Top Issues?

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by Malorn

In this discussion about sancs I saw several more great usability topics Hamma could ask about.

Interesting things I saw

1) He immediately dismissed the pop-up that gave him an introduction to the game (without reading it). I think internet ads and Windows have trained us to click those things away as soon as possible. We just don't like pop-ups, so I can't blame him for doing that. Though I did find it amusing he dismisses a welcome pop-up and then claims he's confused and doesn't know what to do. Clearly need something more effective there.

2) He never once found Instant Action.

3) It took him about 15 minutes after he got into the game to find a fight. I think there's a good chance many players in our short-attention-span world would not have waited that long. He said after about 3 minutes "I'm bored"

4) Some of his "wow!" moments came when he opened the map and saw how big it was, when he saw the vehicle options at the ground terminal, and when he actually got into the fighting he seemed to enjoy himself. He also admired the graphics of the game, though I don't think he played long enough to realize there was a day/night cycle. He probably would have enjoyed that too.


Could learn a lot from this video as a case study. Its something I consider an important issue to the game. It's key to hooking new players. If you want people to shoot at and a healthy PlanetSide 2 community and a well-funded post-launch project then this should be one of the top concerns. New player retention.

Tutorial problem! It's all a tutorial problem! He didn't know if the NC were his friends or foes, didn't know about bullets, and ATV roll overs! (though to be fair that last one happens to all of us a lot)

Good illustration there Malorn on exactly what I've been hearing from people who tried PS and didn't like it. The story always is that they got in and couldn't find a fight and so left. There are two solutions to this, have a tutorial (which I don't think SOE has much experience in just due to their games' natures) or to have players actively find and train new players which is something that shouldn't be necessary.

The problem with the pop up window is that people are both trained against pop ups and that they don't like being handed a book to read when they want to play. If you are going with the text method DO NOT PUT IT ALL ON 1 SLIDE. It blurs together and people will gloss over it as we saw as he starts to look at it and determines that it's too much and just closes it.

Tutorials are difficult for this style of game. One possibility is similar to PS1's eventual tutorial system with the VR areas and the arrows the lead you around to things (though the tutorial in PS has always been so buried under things it's almost impossible for a new player to find). You could do it via videos the first of which is difficult to skip and tells you where to find the rest of the videos (E.Y.E. I believe does this and has a text dump). Has the downside of making patching require a lot of changes to the system but doesn't present a barrier that has to be run totally through each character creation. Either way something needs to be done.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by WildEagle

Ask them why they're so afraid to build off the foundation that was already laid in PS1 i.e sanctuaries, HART, meta game, etc. instead of trying to be consistent with "modern shooters". I really don't understand how the devs can continually read posts where people complain about the same things over and over again and do nothing about it.

Didn't know what they had? Just a guess.

[Hamma]

Thanks guys - great feedback so far I've been noting it and keeping track of it. So keep it up!

[Rolfski]

The following issue has no top priority but is an extremely annoying one nonetheless and has been brought up multiple times by the community:

Please, fix the stupid issue that forces people to re-login every time into the SOE forums

[Livefire]

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

First off, their website. (You gave me a reason to rant and by God i am going to do it.)

The multiple threads of people just blatently BITCHING about the same exact thing over and over and over is just too much. If people that haven't played Planetside or Planetside 2 yet come and just check out the forums without registering, all they see in general chat is just BITCHING. Also the developers who try to respond to those bitching constantly.. Man that has GOT to be demoralizing as Fuck!

Obviously the performance. It will run on an i5 but not an i7 or on my core2quad but not an i5. It just needs to be hammered out. I have faith it will be but if you are looking for a point that needs attention, that's another one.

Sanctuaries. Make the bloody bastards off continent, on continent but out of reach, in space or on the water but get the damn things off the mainland where people camp.. I You have 1300 OTHER people playing the game, what in the the hell made them think ONE of those guys wouldn't come troll the "sanctuary", then God forbid get sanc locked....

Logistics. In it's entirety, the game virtually lacks any logistics. People continunally take places, nothing is "home", the need for resources is useless when capped at 750 plus the gain is phenominal and the auraxiam resource locations are poorly placed.

I could go on and on but I aint.

Now you know why so many people and especially Vets are complaining on the forums, there is a good reason. Major game systems that have been in PS for 10 years and worked perfectly as they were refined over that time were just left out of the game for some reason all together, as if they never intended to add them in the future. This has lead to all the problems currently in game as thought SOE never made the first one and is doing this for the very first time or something. It is very strange.

[bullet]

Originally Posted by Malorn

In this discussion about sancs I saw several more great usability topics Hamma could ask about.


This is an interesting video to watch - brand new player first twenty minutes in PS2.

Planetside 2 Beta: No way, José - YouTube


Interesting things I saw

1) He immediately dismissed the pop-up that gave him an introduction to the game (without reading it). I think internet ads and Windows have trained us to click those things away as soon as possible. We just don't like pop-ups, so I can't blame him for doing that. Though I did find it amusing he dismisses a welcome pop-up and then claims he's confused and doesn't know what to do. Clearly need something more effective there.

2) He never once found Instant Action.

3) It took him about 15 minutes after he got into the game to find a fight. I think there's a good chance many players in our short-attention-span world would not have waited that long. He said after about 3 minutes "I'm bored"

4) Some of his "wow!" moments came when he opened the map and saw how big it was, when he saw the vehicle options at the ground terminal, and when he actually got into the fighting he seemed to enjoy himself. He also admired the graphics of the game, though I don't think he played long enough to realize there was a day/night cycle. He probably would have enjoyed that too.


Could learn a lot from this video as a case study. Its something I consider an important issue to the game. It's key to hooking new players. If you want people to shoot at and a healthy PlanetSide 2 community and a well-funded post-launch project then this should be one of the top concerns. New player retention.

Watching that reminded me of my login to Planetside. Somehow I found the IA button and it ported me next to a tower on Forseral. I was still lost from there, but I was atleast near the action. I did go through that Tutorial they had when the game first shipped, so I don't know if they taught you about IA in there or not. He did find IA in the video but it dropped him on Peris which was even farther away. -.- GG IA.

There definitely needs to be a tutorial or a step by step guide explaining things when you first log in otherwise we can, and will, lose players due to the non instant action/confusion of this game. I want a good solid tutorial along with gameplay to ensure the longevity of this game.

Q:How do they plan to snag the new players when they first get in game? The video posted above is an obvious outcry for tutorial or some hand holding at least.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tutorials-101
My favorite tutorial guide, or something. Great info there.

[Shogun]

my top concerns:

change permanent fog into a weather phenomenom that only occurs in the morning or during bad weather.

engineer and medics need more versatility. the actual system castrates them to only be able to do one thing. the class system is too limiting for support players! it is ok to prevent jack of all trades uebersoldiers, but it is far too limiting right now.

the overall awareness has to improve a lot. i can´t tell enemys from friends all the time (if i even notice that there is someone in the first place)
need something like the improved targeting implant from ps1 or i will not see any enemy when camos come in. also navigating is far too hard.

and last but not least... fix the joystick deadzone/nocalib issue already! i want to test the airplanes but i am not going to try again with keyboard and mouse.

[ringring]

A question just (re) occurred to me.

could you ask about CE ....
the number of mines that can be laid is rediculously low, also the fact that they vanish when you change class ... and also I suspect after a period of times (unknown at present).

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Please, fix the stupid issue that forces people to re-login every time into the SOE forums

This is a security thing, after the big SOE hacking thing they ramped up this sort of stuff.

[Valcron]

This game in it's current form is essentially a disaster. They have stripped out EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE great thing about Planetside 1 from it and basically made a glorified Battlefield 3 game. It sucks, and I just got my refund for the stupid alpha squad.

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by Valcron

This game in it's current form is essentially a disaster. They have stripped out EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE great thing about Planetside 1 from it and basically made a glorified Battlefield 3 game. It sucks, and I just got my refund for the stupid alpha squad.

With Malorn on board, good things may happen concerning the metagame. Keep hope !

[EVILoHOMER]

Can we have handbrakes on vehicles so we can sit on the side of hills without having to play a balancing mini game with W and S?

[Babyfark McGeez]

Personally i would like to know their thoughts on two gameplay things:

- Resource system and population imbalance (with the problem of becoming locked out of vehicles/aircrafts when being "warp-gated")

- The meaning of bases aside from resource gain (i recall the bases in ps1 giving "perks")

[Boomzor]

I cannot repair an enemy turret or terminal
I cannot hack a destroyed turret or terminal.

A lone infiltrator can more or less deny any vehicle spawning from an entire base on his own by hacking and destroying the terminals.

Any plans to counter this?

[Timealude]

Originally Posted by Boomzor

I cannot repair an enemy turret or terminal
I cannot hack a destroyed turret or terminal.

A lone infiltrator can more or less deny any vehicle spawning from an entire base on his own by hacking and destroying the terminals.

Any plans to counter this?

It could be just a glitch but idk if it is or not, i know you get grief points for blowing up your own terminals and turrets maybe they should up it more to discourage it.