Why Planetside 2 has been steadily losing players - Page 2

LoliLoveFart · 2013-09-02, 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

The biggest issue with Planetside 2, as I see it, is that it is fucking repetitive. There is no variety to anything- there are no lasting affects to anything.

This. After close to 10 months of the same fights in the same bases people get bored. The Lattice helped change it up a little bit, but still the same fights in slightly different bases get dull as shit.

SpunkyKuma · 2013-09-02, 06:29 PM

I'm sensing a wave of hacks recently, the sudden gameplay difficulty is like a light switch that just got turned on and much harder to stay above 1.0 during sessions. I'm being shot through walls and floors and when trying to get to the squad waypoint in an ESF since there was no squad leader spawn or beacon, a decimator out of nowhere hit my ESF at near max ceiling, very strange.

I don't accuse people of hacks, but lately I've just been /reporting who I think possibly are and let the CSR deal with it. In the meantime, it's very discouraging to even bother play anymore, been playing other games lately.

phungus · 2013-09-02, 07:30 PM

In my opinion there are 2 huge flaws in the game that directly impact it's success.

First and primarily is how large groups of players mass up and then roll small groups of players. Most fights on PS2 are in areas where one side outnumbers the other 5 to 1 or better, and that's just boring. Often times you log in and if you can't spawn your ESF you have no where to go to have fun, the only choices of where to spawn are somewhere where you are camping someone, or getting camped. It's awful, it's the main reason I turn off the game.

Second is invisible god mode and how this effects battles, particularly large ones. But I've already rattled on about this enough, and plus I know the devs aren't happy with it, and I'm hoping this is one of the main focuses of "optimization".

So yeah, spawning, and uneven battles are the two biggest issues. I think fixing this would improve gameplay by an order of magnitude. Honestly none of the problems noted by the OP are an issue, especially cheats, I haven't noticed a cheat in a long time, I can't even remember how long.

Mordelicius · 2013-09-02, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

I love a man who quotes himself.

The things you didn't discuss are the reasons new players don't stick around. They don't stick around to notice all the other things you don't like. Which, I have to say, I disagree with a lot of. No deploy zones has greatly improved the way bases and defended and taken, for example.

Your suggestions aren't very good either.

"Hay guyz lets completely change the way experience is gained so we can change bases into zergfarms. That will keep the new players playing!"

No.

You really have to read the OP again. I put it in the first few lines what I won't discuss (with highlights) and will discuss. Which is the specific subject of the thread. For one, those list are already well covered and if I were to expounded on all of them at once, it will be a scatterbrained post. I wanted to focus on what's not discussed before.

But, feel free to discuss in detail what you believe are the 'reasons why new players don't stick around'. Anything I haven't covered yet.

Secondly, how did the NDZ improved the 'way bases are defended and taken' exactly? The NDZ makes it very easy to wipe Sunderers since the hiding spot choices are limited. It doesn't help that Suderers had 3 minor buffs (anti-c4, mine and extra armor) as opposed to the multitude of Sundy-killers they've released: (Lock on RLs, Tank damage/armor buff, Spear turret buff, AV engie turret, Harassers, Max AV buff, New Max AV, Stealth Flash, ESRL).

The only other choice to stow away your Sundy in a faraway hiding spot. In that case, defenders simply follow the infantry trail all the way to the Sundy and blow it up easily.

If you like wiping (attacker), walking (attacker) and waiting (defender), the NDZ is for you.

As for the zergfarm. What separates Planetside from other games? Answer: Zergfarms.

A 2000-player continent and you're not expecting big fights?

If you simply want small fights, players aren't gonna stick to to PS2 for that. That's what other FPS are for. But this is a MMOFPS.

AThreatToYou · 2013-09-03, 12:32 AM

My response to OP: Maybe. I don't know. There are a lot of reasons that I would rule out as for why people quit. Overpowered units is not one of them. Messy XP gain isn't it either.

I think most people quit PS2 because it fails to deliver. Battles are over too fast, defense is too hard, base design and spawn room mechanics are derpy. The core problems with the game, too many players disagree on so the devs don't make a move.

Mordelicius · 2013-09-03, 01:00 AM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

My response to OP: Maybe. I don't know. There are a lot of reasons that I would rule out as for why people quit. Overpowered units is not one of them. Messy XP gain isn't it either.

I think most people quit PS2 because it fails to deliver. Battles are over too fast, defense is too hard, base design and spawn room mechanics are derpy. The core problems with the game, too many players disagree on so the devs don't make a move.

All of those are really tied together. There's a thin line between fast wipe and easy capture. Sundy wipe, Sundy wipe, Sundy wipe, (o, o, o they got more players now), spawn contained, spawn contained, spawn contained

It almost feels like there's a switch between the two. Whatever happened to the middle ground where attackers can spawn just fine from a sunderer and defenders can hold the points just fine without getting easily spawn contained and the actual fights will decide who get the points as opposed who blows up the sundy first or who spawn contains quick enough.

The poor mechanic like the NDZ lead to Sunderer wipes phenomenon. While the Spawn containment arise from bad spawn base design. And with the price increase on Tanks/Harassers, players are more drawn to pulling them than wasting it on Sundy. They badly needed to buff the Sunder and better yet make them cheaper.

As another example, they created all these system of tunnels only to nullify whatever effect they have by lowering base cap times and changing the SCU/Gen mechanic making it almost prohibitive to resecure the base.

One minor thing they could do is make the Amp Station SCU shield blue so the attackers can't just park Harassers and Maxes there and prevent defenders from even reaching A from the SCU tunnel. Because that's all they do.

Qwan · 2013-09-03, 07:09 AM

Well I played a little this weekend, had a little fun, but I mostly logged in just to collect my certs for the day and log back out. I think that PS2 is steadily losing players because they are trying to mash MMO with Casual gaming. Guys MMO's are time intensive (consuming) beast which require attention, and time to make the game enjoyable, and I dont mean that for the developer end, I mean that for the player. I mean you tell me of an MMO were you log in play for a couple of hours and your walking around maxed out in lvl and got some awesome gear, it doesnt exist. Developers are trying so hard to develope an MMO around Casual gaming specs that there 1. pissing off the core MMO gamers and 2. pissing off there casual gamers. No offence but an MMO is not a casual game, you cant tell a casual gamer "Hey play this game for a couple of weeks to get good gear, or pay money and get it right away" most will tell you to go fuck yourself and log into BF3 or CoD were the playing field is pretty level and its casual. Then you have the MMO crowd who have the time, and dont mind putting in the work, but to what extent, just to get one shot by a lvl 1 newb who spent SC cash for a shot gun and has been playing for Ooo about 10 mins. And who also has to deal with a game that has no focus, or meta, just mindless killing and alot of lackless content. I think the problem here is that SOE is trying to put two things together like MMO and Casual gaming and its just not working, these are two words that should not be in the same sentence

Stanis · 2013-09-03, 11:53 AM

I don't care if I get approximately zero XP for a brilliant fight.
I stopped paying attention to my own Battle Rank a long time ago.

The problem is in the styles of play.
The optimum XP gain is achieved from a good position in or near a big fight that you are not directly involved.
That means you can sit there and snipe/shell/pick off players and keep racking up several kills a minute.

They nerfed the liberator because it did this supremely well.

There is no other long term meaningful objective. There really isn't.
If there is no other objective : you can't measure other forms of success.

I can't conquer the world.
There is no goal after capturing this continent.
There is no grand strategy - we have a game that has huge scope and potential shoehorned into a sandbox of three individual relatively small maps.

The goalposts for continental capture are absurd.
* every continents is a three way.
* a 75% threshold took all sense of achievement out of it.
* population imbalance makes anywhere other than Indar trivial

The lattice we have now is a stepping stone to a larger game.
The continents we have now are a stepping stone to using some of that huge scope PS2 has.

Optimisation is wonderful but we've needed everything that's been put on hold .. we're playing literally half a game.
We got most of a triple A shooter on steroids ... we're completely missing all of the Planetside on crack.

Qwan · 2013-09-03, 12:19 PM

@ stanis

you hit the nail on the head.

kubacheski · 2013-09-03, 01:38 PM

@stanis and @qwan You both make wonderful points.

I see a ripple effect in all that we're talking about here. Look at it like this:

1) PS2 is a big grinding treadmill for certs.
2) You buy things with certs.
2a) PS2 has a cash shop for things that people would buy with certs.

Now this makes a lot of sense in a typical MMO. You have a level grind that you get more powerful and can kill larger mobs and get better equipment. You progress and earn or buy better equipment.

The problem is that PlanetSide isn't a typical MMO. The selling point is that a BR1 is on a near equal playing field as a BR100. There is only PvP. One guy/gal isn't supposed to be (that much) better than another. There isn't supposed to be better equipment or armor or vehicles, etc. Well in-so-much that "better" isn't supposed to make a huge difference.

Now throw in the persistent mentality vs the e-sports mentality and you're pulling in two different directions for development and gaming style. Short vs long battles. Fast TTk and quicker respawns vs longer TTK and spawns where you're penalized for dying too much.

Completely different concepts. Not to mention too many changes in the past 10 months. To change the XP or cert gain progression for the better now would really throw people who spent real $$$ on things into a ragequit. And then where would SOE be by pissing off the people who are actually paying for the game? The direction they're going seems to indicate that they don't care about the MMO side of things. The MMO-minded players invest the time to earn certs (or weapons unlocked with certs) instead of buying them. What good is that to SOE other than a larger player base? The "whales" that support this game are not typically ones that will invest large amounts of time into a game. If they did, they would have the certs and not need to shell out that much $$$.

As stated before in this thread, you can't be both MMO and Casual.

Varsam · 2013-09-03, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

I love a man who quotes himself.

The things you didn't discuss are the reasons new players don't stick around. They don't stick around to notice all the other things you don't like. Which, I have to say, I disagree with a lot of. No deploy zones has greatly improved the way bases and defended and taken, for example.

Your suggestions aren't very good either.

"Hay guyz lets completely change the way experience is gained so we can change bases into zergfarms. That will keep the new players playing!"

No.

Agree with this.

The old crown was an indefinitely defensible base. The only way to take it was with overwhelming numbers (even then unlikely) or by ghost capping it (also unlikely). Usually it took both.

Lowering the biolab cap was necessary because biolabs rarely ever changed hands before. They were (again) easily defensible and easily resecured if threatened.

AMS NDZ's prevented people from parking a spawn point with a shorter timer than base spawns closer to an objective than even the spawn room.

While PS2 does have its problems, the ones you cited aren't among them. Your suggested solutions are also inelegant and contrived. Your ideal PS2 sounds like 30-40 old Crowns dotting Indar with sundies parked on top of objectives. It means that whoever gets to a base first wins, and it sounds incredibly boring and frustrating.

Calista · 2013-09-03, 03:19 PM

Would be nice to see a community poll of which thing they believe will boost pops most: optimizations, Hossin, BI's, MLG, better new player experience etc. Just a couple things I can think of but I would be curious about what a poll of these and other things tell us.

Oh and also I found this from Steamcharts. I know not nearly all players use Steam but if you compare Sirisian's chart and a couple things Higby has said in the past it looks like about half do so you do the math...

http://steamcharts.com/app/218230#1y

Wahooo · 2013-09-03, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by Varsam

While PS2 does have its problems, the ones you cited aren't among them. Your suggested solutions are also inelegant and contrived. Your ideal PS2 sounds like 30-40 old Crowns dotting Indar with sundies parked on top of objectives. It means that whoever gets to a base first wins, and it sounds incredibly boring and frustrating.

This very nearly, and quite concisely, says what I was thinking but unable to put into words. Though I would say that many of the problems listed in the OP are spot on, many aren't and yeah, the solutions are not solutions but bad.

Wahooo · 2013-09-03, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by Qwan

Developers are trying so hard to develope an MMO around Casual gaming specs that there 1. pissing off the core MMO gamers and 2. pissing off there casual gamers.

And mix in that it is a pvp shooter to further alienate the tab targeting/questing not liking pvp RPG folks who came to PS2 because of the MMO tag.

The more I see games that advertise FPS/MMO or MMO-Shooter the more I think maybe it is just a niche market that will never make it.

There just seems to be too much RPG for the shooter crowd (Firefall, Global Agenda (after 2.0)) or not enough MMO for the MMO crowd (Warframe) Not enough shooter for the shooter crowd (Firefall) too much shooter for the MMO crowd (Global Agenda) poor implementation of both (Fallen Earth). One way or another the best you can hope for is to piss off one of your key target audiences for the sake of making the other half of the game great, and inevitably losing out due to the low population taking the M out of Mmo.

Is balance really balance if it is trying to not piss off either side rather than make both sides happy? Is it possible to combine the concept in a way that DOES make both sides happy? I'm not sure it is.

Babyfark McGeez · 2013-09-03, 04:04 PM

I think the most important thing to get new people into this and others back is to finally add hossin and thus, as i stated it countless times, finally put the planetside into planetside with intercontinental warfare.
Currently this is not planetside. Don't be fooled. It's three giant, disconnected maps with permanent threeways. I could achieve the same thing with a really big unreal tournament map and a server that hosts 2000 people and has no score limit (regardless of techincal limitations). That is not planetside. Planetside is having maps interconnected to achieve a gameplay and feeling of global conquest, which i allways thought would be the actual selling point of this game and thus be brought forth more quickly (read: at "launch").

With that core mechanic added when someone asks you what the goal of the game is you can then finally say "To conquer the whole goddamn planet as vanu intended us to do", instead of "At 75% map control on each of the maps we get a slight reduction to one of the resources". Yeah...not many lined up for that hm?

Optimization would be second on my list.

Edit: Also that steam graph is pretty sad. :L