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2013-08-31, 04:22 PM | [Ignore Me] #1 | ||||||
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Planetside 2 has been steadily losing players since launch. And there are several reasons for it. But, first, i'll point out the ones I won't be discussing. And these are already much discussed as you can see:
- Performance - Griefing/Hacking/Exploiting - Overpowered Units (used to farm helpless newbs) - Faction Imbalances leading to server imbalance - Lack of Metagameplay However, there is one aspect of PS2 that's fundamentally rotting away the core gameplay and driving away game's population. It's the conflict of conceptual PS2 vs the actual/applied PS2. What does this mean? Planetside 2 concept: Persistent warfare in a massive scale and map. That is ideally what PS2 is and should be. Planetside 2 applied: After they lure new players in, they turn around and not foster, support, encourage this kinds of massive fights and in many cases even discourage it (with the new rulesets and mechanics they've been implementing). All of these swirling points can be distilled in their philosophic approach: The developers much rather limit gameplay than limit cert gain, as opposed to limit cert gain instead of gameplay. Again, what do I mean by that? I'll explain this by giving many cases and examples of how they tinker with the game mechanics. Obviously they don't want players to farm too much certs easily. You can see this in the first generation bases they've released (and I've noted this before in the forum), which didn't allow chokepoints, turtle and awash many unmitigatable flanks (windows, doors, stairs, etc.). Examples: Degrading the Crown - When we were testing the lattice on the PTS, all we're asked was which other bases are too good. They would rather kill a good base than improve the other bases. And so they killed the Crown (iirc it was already changed at that point) rather take the good points off it and apply it to other bases. Lowering Biolab Cap: Here is another example. They are so averse to Biolab farms that they would lower the cap to 3 minutes. Combined with the new SCU/Shield gen mechanic, resecure/rescue and recovery is screwed. No Deploy Zone: This is another great example. The NDZ has not done anything good for gameplay but debase it. I call it the WWW (wipe, walk and wait). Attackers will wipe because Sunderers are much harder to hide. Attackers will walk back from the last base and Defenders will wait. That's triple tedium. All this does kill the battleflow. And what this tells me is they don't want players spawning close to each other and killfarming. Such as in Towers where you can park the Sundy downstairs or on Amp Station/Tech Plants where they park next to A. Easier Continent Cap/Uncap - They've went too far with this as well. The old rivalries and bragging rights/taunting are gone. I understand one base to farm players over and over again is excessive, but the current Continent capping is moot, because it is utterly pointless to hold it being practically impossible to defend. All the has been evident since they limited the redeploy/hotdrops to several bases. They simply want to decrease the fights and increase the nonfighting activity like transportation. Now, this overarching concept has completely taken over PS2. Let's check the other side of the coin: Decrease the cert gain and keep the massive fights. Roll back all the destructive stuff like NDZ, and bring back the good bases such as the Crown. I also understand they check local/specific hotspots where players get to kill alot and make changes to them. I noticed it small changes in the Biolab rock elevations/cover placements as well as rock covers out in the open map. Suggestion: Now, how does PS2 can regulate cert and still have sustained, meatgrinder fights that everyone loves? How can the Devs' disdain for sustained fights be mollified? This has been discussed before Dynamic XP was implemented. Before Dynamic XP was implemented I was suggesting XP gain cooldown upon death, meaning everytime a player dies, a timer ticks. Until that timer ticks down to zero, that player cannot gain/give xp from kills using a fired/activated weapons (perhaps they can still gain xp from mines). I've been arguing that the Developers don't want players farming and earning certs at a high rate. The best compromise is to limit the cert gain, allowing them more room to accept and design meatgrinder mechanics. Aside from the lattice system, the Developers are very averse to farms and meatgrinders. Hence, the Kill XP cooldown upon death. - Recently killed players cannot gain kill XP until timer cooldown - Recently killed players cannot give kill Xp until timer cooldown (not counting suicides as death) My suggestions is experiment how long is a viable cooldown time. Rather than gain certs for every player just respawning or rescuscitated, increase the xp per kill. Even it's just a minute, so long as we can have our massive meatgrinder fights back. If all you rez, die, rez, die, the fight is still on, but we're more focused to the objective. In addition, they can tinker with base cap XP to reflect the enhanced importance of base capture. The timer will also condition players to not die all the time if they want to get kill xp and same time not reward spawn and choke campers with free xp and finally allow Devs room to back away from their embrace of artificial-gameplay-limits-as-means-to-regulate-xp-gain. How about do it the other way around, limit cert gain through death xp timer and leave the gameplay untouch and improve upon it rather than rack their brains to find not-so-ingenious means to scale back the fights. Here are some of my old posts on the subject before Dynamic XP on December 17, 2012 (and i've posted this before having to read/know what the Dynamic XP concept was: http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=51359
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