Oh lord, playing PS2 is fucking depressing now

[Taramafor]

Originally Posted by EVILoHOMER

Most people have quit because the developers didn't listen, every one I know who played, quit by Dec 2012 and I personally noticed the population halved by Jan 2013.

The game became depressing to play, not only because there was no meta game but because the base designs sucked, the weapons were boring and it just wasn't anywhere near as good as Planetside.

Just cannot believe it is already coming up to 2 years old :\

Agreed. Lack of a proper world(/universe?) end goal gives people nothing to strive for either.

The biggest problem is that for anything SOE DID do right, they'd add a whole new shit load of just plain wrong.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Logged in for my daily certs and decided to play the last 10 mins of the alert that was going on.

And...the game is fucking broken right now lol. I was able to capture points from a few hexes away and we had some invincible guys standing outside our spawn. There was probably more but i preferred to log off. Do they ever test their shit?

[Vashyo]

Farming is winning, you win new guns and other items doing it. ^^

Wish we had scores based on how well you do an area instead of just killing as much people as possible as fast as possible as it is now. Bit something like PS1 where u could get some serious XP for taking over a tough base.

[Boildown]

Patch after patch for eight months straight SoE has done nothing but reinforce zerg-friendly gameplay, while nerfing small squad gameplay. There must be some metric that says they make more money this way. I for one can't wait for Star Citizen Dogfighting Module. I'm glad I let my year-long sub lapse in December, I wouldn't want to be paying for the game in its state right now. This game still has its moments, but they are fewer and farther between than they used to be.

[BlaxicanX]

If you want small-squad gameplay, play Gears of War.

idk. When I hear people complain about big battles in PS2, I think of someone complaining about not being able to use their hands in soccer.

[HereticusXZ]

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

^ That won't work because playstyles within the game are too different, and it depends on player empathy for their fellow players.

If I was playing the game and I noticed that we just lost the tech-lab that allows my faction to build ESF's, I wouldn't give a single fuck. Because I don't fly ESF's and I could care less if my factions' pilots have to ground-pound like the rest of us. Similarly, will a pilot care about tankers losing access to their MBT's? Probably not.

There isn't really a way to stop a "zerg" because the entire core concept of the game encourages people to mass up together and roll around the map getting into big fights. Safety and victory both lie in numbers, and even if the game gave you zero exp for taking a base because you did it as part of a zerg, human instinct to follow the herd will set in for most people anyway.

But as far as incentives, an incentive is something that personally benefits you. Thus, something distant like "if you don't keep that base, your factions' pilots can't fly" isn't enough. It has to be something that punishes or rewards everyone on an individual level.

As opposed to right now where everyone sits at a tower or Bio-lab and just farms XP all day?

Make the 3 main facilities control and restrict a feature of the game and you will see incentive to defend. That's nice a pure and true Softie won't care about Vehicles or MAX' but catering to other playstyles who do care, they will ideally want to defend these other facilities over the XP farm.

Plain softies can do everything but things like Air, Armor, or MAX Units give you options to make the breakthrough crash now rather then in 15-20 minutes with a long slug-fest.

Breaks up the Zerg that's only zerging for XP to chase after important objectives relevant to the war effort over "Which fight has the best XP farm?!"

[BlaxicanX]

Let's say that Amp Stations now control ESF spawns, if you lose all your amp stations, your faction can no longer spawn their ESF.

Your faction loses all its last Amp Stations.

Do you think that your faction is going to mount a concentrated effort to get an amp station back? I would argue that it probably wouldn't. The infantryman isn't going to particularly care, the guy driving a tank isn't going to particularly care, and the pilots who can't fly their ESF's aren't going to unite all the other pilots and groundpound to grab an amp station. So what'll happen is that your faction will lose access to ESF's, and life will go on as normal until it's eventually recaptured. In the meantime, pilots will either groundpound or they'll log in to a different character and fly their ESF's.

Take a look at history; you need a Tech-Plant to spawn MBT's. Esamir has only a single tech-plant on it, meaning that at any one time, only one out of three factions on Esamir can spawn MBT's.

When was the last time you saw the lone Tech-Plant on Esamir be hotly contested by all three factions? When was the last time you saw Eisa constantly changing faction hands? It doesn't really, because unless it's a Tech-Plant alert, Eisa Tech isn't considered a strategically important objective on Esamir, despite the fact that you need it to spawn MBT's. Being able to spawn MBT's just isn't that important to anyone in a faction besides the people who drive them. It's the same situation for ESF's and... pretty much any other vehicle in the game.

I think you're underestimating the inherent greed in players. The reason why we have farms is because exp personally benefits a player, always. I don't care if some poor guy in my faction can't spawn his esf, but I always need a new gun, or a weapon attachment, or a new ability, etc etc. So if I have to choose between farming players for exp, or taking Eisa tech-plant so that my faction could spawn MBT's, , why would I choose Eisa tech-plant over moar exp, aside from just having a big heart?

[HereticusXZ]

More or less my point Blaxican is exactly the point you just made, there's to much incentive in the XP farm, individual greed. We need options, reasons, incentive, SOMETHING to get away from the XP farm/zerg and back into the realm of tactics and strategy.



Also to counter....

Eisa specifically doesn't hold much significance for a combination of Lattice and the cost to push and take the Tech-Plant isn't worth the territory you'll lose by committing so much manpower to such a heavily fortified position.

You don't see any care for most of the Tech-Plants right now, because the MBT is largely under-powered, or ground armor in general is largely useless and I'm going to point at Community Clash as my evidence.

As with any game the balance of power revolves around the competitive scene simply because it's the competitive players who points out the strength and weakness of weapons and vehicles, there using it the fastest and the loudest.

With that said Air is first and foremost the deciding factor in every single CC Match, then comes the Infantry to actually grab the points. Armor is no real factor, yeah you can argue exceptions to the rule but I'm talking in-general use.



Expanding on the role of TP's and armor relevance, Applying similar restrictions to other Main Facility: Bio-Labs control the MAX, Amp-Stations control the Liberator.... This is just one option to try and get focus away from XP Zergs and back into the realm of Strategy and Tactics.

I'd love to see other options proposed, discussed and explored if the Main Facility restrictions aren't to your taste.

[KesTro]

I honestly think community clash isn't very good evidence when talking about PLanetside 2 as a whole. In small skirmishes? Yes I can see air being needed but in the open world everyone has their part to play there are fights I come across regularly where air can't do a damn thing because the AA has reached critical mass. At that point it's time to pull armor.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

IIRC that's Miller for you. Every server but Waterson.

But let me be entirely fair: that's just the game. Tactics? Winning? Lol, fuk that! Winning is having the highest k/d and/or score per minute!

Unfortunately that's true, as there is still no substantial reason to play for your faction as opposed to your own personal gain.

[Binkley]

My concern isn't that not enough players will care to get their amp stations back (to be able to spawn ESFs), but that they won't be able to. If your factions loses it's ESFs, MBTs, etc how is it going to be able to fight back against opponents that have these things? When the skies are filled with enemy ESFs, Libs, and Galaxies and you have no air power to counter them, you are royally screwed. Good luck taking back you major installations.

[Xaine]

Why do you think the game dropped like 80% of its population in 6 months after launch?

Because its bad, and doesn't come NEAR the original Planetside.

What everyone seems to ignore is how hard SOE dropped the ball on this game. It looks great, plays great - but has no substance at all.

An FPS on this scale is an amazing technical achievement. If they'd made it like Planetside 1 (taking territory means something, death has meaning, tactics actually matter) then the game wouldn't be in the god awful spot it is now.

It's like they looked at everything that made Planetside 1 good, scratched their head and said 'Nah, fuck that - lets make it less interesting'.

SoE make good games, apparently by mistake - then they release they have something good, try to make it better/make a sequel and cut the heart out of it, leaving it a limp, lifeless shell.

GG SoE. Never have I seen someone throw so much money and effort at such a good idea, and have it fail SO hard.

[bpostal]

Originally Posted by Assist

Unfortunately that's true, as there is still no substantial reason to play for your faction as opposed to your own personal gain.

You can play for your faction because you enjoy seeing your faction do well. Unfortunately that only carries you for so long.
During my week off for spring break I played for maybe two hours...and beat Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 in a row again because that sounded more satisfying and enjoyable.

[BlaxicanX]

Originally Posted by HereticusXZ

More or less my point Blaxican is exactly the point you just made, there's to much incentive in the XP farm, individual greed. We need options, reasons, incentive, SOMETHING to get away from the XP farm/zerg and back into the realm of tactics and strategy.



Also to counter....

Eisa specifically doesn't hold much significance for a combination of Lattice and the cost to push and take the Tech-Plant isn't worth the territory you'll lose by committing so much manpower to such a heavily fortified position.

You don't see any care for most of the Tech-Plants right now, because the MBT is largely under-powered, or ground armor in general is largely useless and I'm going to point at Community Clash as my evidence.

As with any game the balance of power revolves around the competitive scene simply because it's the competitive players who points out the strength and weakness of weapons and vehicles, there using it the fastest and the loudest.

With that said Air is first and foremost the deciding factor in every single CC Match, then comes the Infantry to actually grab the points. Armor is no real factor, yeah you can argue exceptions to the rule but I'm talking in-general use.



Expanding on the role of TP's and armor relevance, Applying similar restrictions to other Main Facility: Bio-Labs control the MAX, Amp-Stations control the Liberator.... This is just one option to try and get focus away from XP Zergs and back into the realm of Strategy and Tactics.

I'd love to see other options proposed, discussed and explored if the Main Facility restrictions aren't to your taste.

I think you make good points here. A lot of the problems with the game are tied to the balance issues. Maybe people would care about their factions having access to tanks and planes if they were a strategic necessity to win fights- as it currently stands, they aren't. Air exists to farm infantry until it gets run off by AA, tanks bombard buildings until they get blown by by AV; the only time either have any staying power are if their faction has a big pop advantage at a base, but if that's the case that factions going to win the base with just infantry anyway. Beyond that, air and armor has no relevance in a fight- thus, they aren't a strategic goal to keep.

Game balance is a massive can of worms though, so I'm not going to get too deep into that, but you get the gist. In order for something to be a faction-wide incentive, it has to be something that every member in a faction cares about. *Right now*, the only thing in the game that has value to everyone is exp. So I guess the real question is, what else in the game can we make valuable enough that the entire faction can recognize the value of making sure they always have access to it?

[OpolE]

I love it, this guy gets to write 'fucking' in his title. You can't penalise me