Unnumbered patch(es)

[MasterCalaelen]

An unnumbered patch was added to the Live Servers two days ago with the following changes:

* Fixed a bug where players with the Five Year Term of Service award were unable to purchase Reinforced Exo-Suit armor in the Sanctuary or on Amerish without the certification.
* Drastically increased the Battle Experience Points (BEP) and Command Experience Points (CEP) for facility captures.

Today, a patch went live that reversed the increase in CEP/BEP you received for facility captures, as this was unintentional.

From Raijinn regarding the CEP/BEP increase revert:

"Hey Folks,

We intended on pushing a small hotfix to fix some of the problems people were having with merits and such. What happened was some of the other branch data got pulled into the push and as you can see, we have a bit more XP going around for base caps.

It was a goal of ours to bump up the base cap XP for a Halloween event, this was pulled early. It was only supposed to affect BEP and definitely not CEP (we have enough CR5's running around...don't we?).

Ultimately we may have to bring the servers down a bit in the near future to revert some of the data that was pushed in order to resolve the issue with getting massive CEP.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on the situation so hopefully this doesn't catch anyone else off-guard.

Thanks!"

[HanSime]

I was glad to poke Raijinn about the CEP increase, as he wasn't aware of it. For once I was happy to see he immediately responded upon noticing a major problem and 'SOE' was on top of it with a fix (or reversion) within a few hours.

[MasterCalaelen]

Originally Posted by HanSime

I was glad to poke Raijinn about the CEP increase, as he wasn't aware of it. For once I was happy to see he immediately responded upon noticing a major problem and 'SOE' was on top of it with a fix (or reversion) within a few hours.

Unfortunately they reverted the BEP increase too, so despite being suprised about the quick response, I'm a little dissapointed the revert had new unintentional issues as well.

[HanSime]

Ey they never reverted the previous increase.


In fact, I'm happy for it:

More bep is (sooner) more cert points for the people = more Reavers/MAXes/HA/BFRs.

I really wish they removed the recent added certs and the Br40 'reward' (I prefer to refer to it as 'BR40 disaster').

[MasterCalaelen]

Originally Posted by HanSime

Ey they never reverted the previous increase.


In fact, I'm happy for it:

More bep is (sooner) more cert points for the people = more Reavers/MAXes/HA/BFRs.

I really wish they removed the recent added certs and the Br40 'reward' (I prefer to refer to it as 'BR40 disaster').

Meh, there's so many MAXs/Plasma/Spam out there that more doesn't matter, the games ruined already.

They should've stopped adding certifications after they added the BR23 increase.

The increased BEP for base captures is really needed though, as it's pathetic that killing a vehicle grants more BEP than capturing a base that you fought for for hours, and which is the main objective of the frikken game.

[HanSime]

Every less MAX (or not obtained) is a MAX less afaic... Only gonna be around till the 2nd of november (unsubbed again) so basically I just want this last period to be playable.


As for the base bep... Well... yeah... :(

[Rahl]

Whine whine.....

I like the all certs idea. Whats wrong with having all certs? You've only got 10 favorites. You can only carry so many guns at once. You can only drive one vehicle at a time. You can get vehicles and maxes only every few minutes.

Get over it. All this does is make people more flexible. When you've only got a few people playing they need to be able to fill more roles.

The game is 6 and a half years old. If it was the same as when it was released it would suck...very much. Things change. Adapt or die.

Oh, and here's an idea....learn to kill MAXes. I can solo a MAX with my lasher in rexo if I get lucky. If I don't, a couple friends make the difference. Also, you can afford an AV cert now...heh.

[Quovatis]

If it were just weapon and vehicle certs, I wouldn't mind. But when a guy can put 25 mines down, cerb turrets, shaddow turrets, infect all your turrets, infect the base, hack a MAX out, kill the tubes, hack an AMS out, then rez all his buddies after he bailed from his gal gunship...it gets to be too much.

It's not too bad right now because not many players have the high BRs or BR40. Give it a few more months...

[HanSime]

Wow Rahl, you really put thought into that argument. [/sarcasm]

A Br40 will NEVER be on a timer, will ALWAYS be able to get a vehicle counter - including ALL solo vehicles from FV BFR to Reaver to Wasp to Flail to Switchblade ON TOP of all other vehicles in game, Skyguard, Sunderer, AMS, Router, etc.

Compared to me - a 5 year carreer cloaker - he can pull way more vehicles than my ATVs, Ground Transport and AMS (I spend 6 points on vehicles). He has 36 points invested in vehicles! Does that impact what he can do compared to me? HELL YES IT DOES.

It impacts his logistics a LOT. He can ALWAYS grab an aircraft out of a base and drop on towers for instance: Lib, Vulture, Reaver, Wasp, Phantasm, you name it.

It impacts the speed with which he can arrive on scene.

He can now carry a T-REK and input virals in anything. I can't. He also can take off virals, as well as jack vehicles and resecure faster than people with advanced hacking.

If he couldn't get out weaponry before, being forced to wait for an advanced hacker - MY TEAMPLAY ROLE - he now can do it himself.

I can't even afford AV. He's got AV, UniMAX and SA.

I don't have sniper (Boltdriver). A BR40 does.

I can't heal myself, let alone reserect other people. A BR40 CAN.

I can't deploy 25 mines, (special) Spits and upgrade Wall Turrets. A BR40 CAN.

He can repair things twice (!) as fast as I can with CE. Heck, he can carry CE now if he was a sniper or aircav user before.




If you seriously don't think it's a big deal, you really need to have a check up with the doctor. A BR40 may only have 10 fave slots, a fave is adjusted in under a minute, compared to me who has to wait a whopping 6 hours (mind, I'd prefer 24 like in the old days) or use once a year Forget All.



It's not at all about what he can carry in one life, it's EXACTLY that he's completely flexible to ALWAYS bring the BEST equipment suited for a job, which means he doesn't have any real weaknesses apart from the spawn timer! This is not at all fair to newbees, who faced opponents who had at least a few weaknesses, like they have many.

On top of that, imagine you just have some killwhore guy - who ignored any responsibilities to get as cheap and as many kills as possible - now gets to do everything, most of it way better than you at once without drawbacks.

It also obsoletes the need for alternate (event) characters as simply having a BR40 makes them a waste of time and effort.


The irony is the first to get it are the people with the worst attitudes in game...

[Rahl]

A guy can only be one place at a time... He can only use one vehicle and carry the same number of guns as anyone else.

Like I said, flexible. He isn't superman.

He just gets to adapt to new fights and new opponents quickly. I think its fair and I still don't see how it ruins or even damages the game. Honestly.

I think you're just used to the way it is and you don't like change. Get over it...

----
Another thought... with multiple characters you can cert everything already. If you get into a fight where your certs don't match...you can just swap characters. This change just means you don't have to bother with the craptastic logout/login process. I just don't see what all the drama is about.

And, the game is a war sim...how is mister killwhore doing wrong? Did he forget to serve Tea and cookies, do some mining, gather rat skins and make his own magic gloves? That's not PS. PS is about killin' things D-e-d dead. So its not the way you want to play...everyone doesn't have to play like you.

[HanSime]

You don't understand the concept of teamplay and dependency on others then.


Which was the essence of PlanetSide: you'd always have to rely on someone else, which meant you had to make social contacts and squad up. Things like those are undermined by promoting solo play.

There's already so little community left, do you really want to remove the last bit of social gameplay?



As far as you insinuating that "everyone should play as me", that's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard. I'm a career cloaker, remember? Do you hear me ask people to play like me? No, I - as most veterans - want people to specialise in roles. That way we've all got our own playstyle, COMPLEMENTING eachother. Instead, BR40 promotes everyone playing the same way, because they can do everything when they want or need to. Everyone with the best suited equipment for the job at all times (per life). You really think NC will still use a Sweeper if they can have a free Jackhammer too? Why use the Sweeper at all anymore if you have BR40? Oshur? Great. A weapon only used for one continent. Oh yes, that'll be GREAT for variety of gameplay if even more people carry HA (too many already IMO).


And yes it's a WAR SIM. We want COMBINED ARMS. Teamwork and if you can pick up solo aircraft and BFRs at all times, why should you want to gun for other vehicles if you can be much faster and more effective on your own?

You look at the game from one death to another. Seems you're very shortsighted in your understanding of PlanetSide, because the faster and more flexible someone can get back into a fight and support himself by healing and repairing, the more likely he is to win that fight.

If you really can't see how a BR40 has massive advantages over other players by being ALL types of support players at once + having all vehicles to bring the 'right' type and strongest kind of counter at all times (while the opposition can't), then I'm sorry but this discussion is over and you really won't ever understand.

[Rahl]

Of course the game requires cooperation. Like I said earlier about MAXes, a few guys helping and they're easy.

This doesn't get rid of cooperation. Again, no supermen, just flexible people.

You JH vs Sweeper is one conflict...and its valid, but not a reason to avoid the BR40 gift. I don't know weapon stats on JH vs Sweeper and I don't care. It doesn't matter. People use what they want. Hell, if HA and MA were combined I'd be fine with it today. Shit, I can't remember meeting a TR without a MCG or an NC without a JH. I don't think I'd notice if HA became common pool.

I can get a Reaver anytime or bail from a skeeter and use HA anytime. But, every time I'm offered a chance to gun a GG or a Mag or a SG I will kill anyone trying to beat me to that gunners seat. I don't see how that will change if I have all certs. Teamwork is more powerful than any weapon in the game. (cheesy but true) I don't think people have to be wearing different armor and carrying different guns to cooperate.

Shit, last night I was holding a CC at a tech plant. I was killing the shit out of people with my thumper frags by launching over the heads of the line of lashers. There were guys with lashers in a line just whipping the crap out of anyone approaching. AI and AV MAXes were cycling in and out of the line as they needed repairs and a few adv meds and engs were healing people up. TEAMWORK and how would it change if we had all certs? Don't say we'd all have MAXes...cause I don't use MAX, I suck with it and don't like it. You can't say we'd all have lashers...cause, well most VS hate the lasher. And we wouldn't all have thumpers cause thats just not effective close range.

In the above instance, most everyone involved was br25+ and cr5. We could have had any certs we wanted and could have played any role we wanted. But, we play different ways....so we picked our role by our loadout and showed up together to fight.

It balances. I think with people having all certs there will be more auto-balancing. When people see a weapon or tactic isn't working they'll be able to adjust as needed.

People bitched when the max was moved from 20 to 25 claiming it would ruin the game. People bitched when cert costs were reduced. People bitched when the cert tree with grouping was put in place. Vehicleside they called it....hah. All wrong. The game is better today than ever before....except pops and BFRs. The only whiners who were right were the Anti-BFR people, they were very right.

[Quovatis]

There's a lot of bitching over the game, that's for sure. :)

[MasterCalaelen]

Originally Posted by Rahl

Of course the game requires cooperation. Like I said earlier about MAXes, a few guys helping and they're easy.

This doesn't get rid of cooperation. Again, no supermen, just flexible people.

You JH vs Sweeper is one conflict...and its valid, but not a reason to avoid the BR40 gift. I don't know weapon stats on JH vs Sweeper and I don't care. It doesn't matter. People use what they want. Hell, if HA and MA were combined I'd be fine with it today. Shit, I can't remember meeting a TR without a MCG or an NC without a JH. I don't think I'd notice if HA became common pool.

I can get a Reaver anytime or bail from a skeeter and use HA anytime. But, every time I'm offered a chance to gun a GG or a Mag or a SG I will kill anyone trying to beat me to that gunners seat. I don't see how that will change if I have all certs. Teamwork is more powerful than any weapon in the game. (cheesy but true) I don't think people have to be wearing different armor and carrying different guns to cooperate.

Shit, last night I was holding a CC at a tech plant. I was killing the shit out of people with my thumper frags by launching over the heads of the line of lashers. There were guys with lashers in a line just whipping the crap out of anyone approaching. AI and AV MAXes were cycling in and out of the line as they needed repairs and a few adv meds and engs were healing people up. TEAMWORK and how would it change if we had all certs? Don't say we'd all have MAXes...cause I don't use MAX, I suck with it and don't like it. You can't say we'd all have lashers...cause, well most VS hate the lasher. And we wouldn't all have thumpers cause thats just not effective close range.

In the above instance, most everyone involved was br25+ and cr5. We could have had any certs we wanted and could have played any role we wanted. But, we play different ways....so we picked our role by our loadout and showed up together to fight.

It balances. I think with people having all certs there will be more auto-balancing. When people see a weapon or tactic isn't working they'll be able to adjust as needed.

People bitched when the max was moved from 20 to 25 claiming it would ruin the game. People bitched when cert costs were reduced. People bitched when the cert tree with grouping was put in place. Vehicleside they called it....hah. All wrong. The game is better today than ever before....except pops and BFRs. The only whiners who were right were the Anti-BFR people, they were very right.

I agreed with most of your post, though I disagree with the BR40 reward as I think it doesn't fit in with the original certifications idea and thinking there would be better rewards for BR40 than just all certs for free, I don't think it's that gamebreaking.

However, the statement I bolded makes me question your sanity. No offense, but no one that experienced PlanetSide 4-5 years ago and experiences it today can say the game is better now, and anyone saying otherwise has a few screws loose in their heads.

[HanSime]

Of course people will use weapons they prefer. That's exactly the problem.

I still would rather have the max BR reduced to 20 - if not 18 (!). Vehicles like the Galaxy and Sunderer are pretty obsolete. Are they used now and then? Sure. But Sundy is not primarily used for its intended purpose: transportation. It's used for ramming people.

The Galaxy is only used by a select few people who can't time a mossie drop.



In the past, this was way, WAY better, when people had to get into Sundies and Galaxies just to be transported to a fight. How often do you see a triple Galdrop these days? Never, because each of those people would rather be in a BFR or Reaver. You see maybe one galdrop a week.

Increasing certpoints changed the game so incredibly much. One reason for this was the supposed tree of certs which cost a lot. Bullox. Hardly anybody uses those extra points to max out their tree: they all got HA, MAX and Reaver instead.

That's why you won't notice that much, because BR25 already caused that. You may also have noticed that pops have dwindled extremely... So you think the current state of the game REALLY is better, you do need that check up. It's a game filled with Killwhores and there's hardly any fun to be had. Certainly not if you play for terrain. People unsub left and right because of that attitude and the boring stalemates the 'grind mentality' (killwhoring) creates.


Rather than increasing the certpoints, the system should have been revised to allow you to get x types of suits, x types of weapons and x types of support certs. That way you'd get all sorts of combinations and character roles, each player being unique.

BR40s are all setup with the heaviest equipment an empire offers - and yeah, BR25 was and is in my eyes already close to too much.

That you feel nothing changes is bullox. Compared to a few years ago, if you held up to a minute on CC, you virtually had the base as very few had adv hack. Now, you have to hold till the last 15 seconds, because 14 minutes of work can be undone in that timeframe. It's not only a lot less forgiving, but any nubbins can hack the base back before you can even respawn to fight over it. It made fights a lot more stale, because you simply can't progress with small groups. BR40 doesn't help that, it makes that worse, because now EVERY BR40 - every person - can go grab three MAX suits, which means you'll need a lot more Decimators. Sure, they won't all grab them at the same time, but even if each grabs one per 'wave' of respawns, you'll be facing way more firepower.

If you don't get that, you don't understand logistics. You need to view this game in series of deaths, not on a one death per death situation - that'd be the case if people wouldn't respawn and get different kits. Basically, it's as if you're fighting a lot more people (more variety in weapons faced and it'll always be the heaviest they can throw at you) when faced with a few BR40s.

[Rahl]

I've played all the way through... The only thing about the game that was better earlier was the pops.

Its easy to look at the past and remember "the golden days" in any situation. Don't forget that the game was unstable, didn't perform, had cheaters and was buggy as hell. Doors didn't open, terms didn't work, the vterm line was 20 people long and locked up all the time. Spawncampers were EVERYWHERE. Behind every corner was a trippleshot weilding agile who warped and couldn't be hit. The game was annoying as hell.

Its better today. The trouble is, Planetside burned a LOT of gamers. They bought it, dreamed big and were let down. They haven't come back.

HanSlime, you're just crazy. Your dream PS would blow. There are 90 people playing when I get online. Thats just not enough for the game you want. If it was hundreds of people on a cont, maybe the specialization would work...and maybe it would just piss people off. Either way, you have no rational argument against the BR40 updates and I'm done discussing the changes. I like em'.

[HanSime]

Your line of argumentation is very flawed, coloured and erratic. =| You apparently accuse me of "looking back at the golden days", but that's complete and utter bull. I'll recite and refer to concepts and situations of the past, but in no way am I advocating to a full return to any given period. Although I might accept old flaws for the removal of BFRs, but that's just because that is particularly bad it dwarfes older problems. There were bad things and good things then, compared to now. But that goes both ways big time!



There are elements that have been improved as there are elements which have severely degraded over the past years. If it REALLY had improved, you'd see people flock. Instead, more people unsub.



For example. Just one example. You can do this for pretty much everything.

Outdoor gameplay has deteriorated for every form of light vehicle and even tanks. It's why most of my outfit left post-BFR: gameplay changed to an abysmal low fun level for them.

Compared to pre-BFR, the only real improvement for vehicles applies only to buggies with regards to CE.

However, that's completely nullified by for example the introduction of the Galaxy Gunship, which devastates gameplay for vehicular drivers, especially whenever more than one is used. As if the (uncalled for) buffed Reaver doesn't make things much worse there already.


Similarly for infantry. There are some improvements and some deteriorations. Aircraft? I don't believe I've seen a lot of happy aircav users - most of whome are complaining about how they used to have better dogfights up until the Wasp. That they've been rightfully nerfed (and as mentioned earlier, uncalled for buffed) in the past doesn't mean the current situation is both optimal or objectively 'best ever'.

Clearly, there's discontent.



Vterm line is still 20 long, because everyone pulls aircav. If it isn't that long, that's primarily due to low populations. It mainly shows how many people have left the game and are still playing. Ironically the queue gets "better" (less wait times) if less people play. It would also get better if less people used solo vehicles. Ie if people would use more multicrew vehicles. They don't.

Spawncamping has improved due to the painfield addition and strengthening. I was one of the people who was advocating that. Similarly, I advocated for the removal of Surgile and the later introduced SURGE EVENT which provide surging MAXes! Not to mention rather horrible things like the Black Ops events.

HAD Cheaters? Sorry, have you logged in any time this month or even throughout this year? There's nearly always two online doing things like teleporting into generators, rof rockleting AMSes and troops and a lot of other dastardly things! Compared to the past there's TONS MORE hacks available and TONS MORE cheaters active! That is a SEVERE degradation of honorable gameplay.


Lag hasn't diminished as that's depending on your setup and connection. In fact, it's worse, since a lot of servers closed, tons of players have to play on the same server with 100 more to even 300 ms ping! You call 142 ms an improvement over my old 15 ms ping?

Doors not opening is due to lag, if you got a better compatible PC and faster connection then yes it should be better - but it hasn't gone away if you got lag spikes. Terms not working still exists with the termbug. What about the hit detection issues everyone suffers from now who didn't before?

Similarly, there's the very annoying addition of T-REK virals without limitation. The way those affect gameplay is unrivaled by even Orbital Strikes, yet they're unlimited in use! No timers, nothing. Handy at times sure. Unlimited? Not really a good thing. I'd much rather have none at all. Especially not if you've got entire squads draining multiple bases per squadmember! Not a situation possible in the "old days" and much better. This is after all, an exploit and unintended/overlooked side-effect of the viral addition.


Oh I know. How about those people who can't play at all anymore because performance has decreased dramatically or because new OS systems like Vista are or were giving them major problems? All those problems need to be fixed too, some still, some have had emergency patches or work arounds.



You might be accusing me of wearing pink goggles, however - it is you who misses the bigger picture. You just seem to ignore and not recognise any problems in today's games. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away.

Unsubbing does and that's what loads of people are doing.

[HanSime]

PS: Learn to read and spell my forum name if you're going to respond. Otherwise there's always copy paste.

I hope it doesn't show how well you've read my argumentation though if you already had problems with the forumname.

[NeoPhoenixTE]

*munching popcorn*


(what, my moderator powers don't work here :P)

[MasterCalaelen]

Originally Posted by NeoPhoenixTE

*munching popcorn*


(what, my moderator powers don't work here :P)

Though I don't think writing huge essays to try and force your opinion/view on a person will lead to anything, I'd hardly think that's against the Forum Policy, they've been pretty civil about it, so far at least. I've got no problem with our lovebirds having this discussion, as it's rather amusing.

[HanSime]

Meh, I'll try to keep it civil as long as nobody bastardises my forumname. Seems to be quite common to suddenly 'missspell' my forum nick with an extra L.

The thing is, the game is not by far in a healthy state. Last month at an hour like this there'd be 15 people on my friendslist active. Now there's 1 or 3. If you seriously think the current state of the game is 'the best ever', how come people keep leaving in droves?

I'll give you that - technically - the game is 'better' in many ways compared to the introduction of BFRs. It's however not in the best state it has been in and in multiple ways worse. Despite it's flaws then, the game was most healthy 5 years ago. For a game like this the community needs to be alive, it's on life support since BFRs.

Beyond that, there's been some fluff added to the game, not all of which are either very practical or made redundant by later additions. The game has not been very many coöp friendly changes save the Phantasm, which is hardly used because everyone has their own Mosquito due to... too many certpoints.

Adding in vehicles like the Galaxy Gunship and requiring aerial counters to it is one example of a bad gameplay change. In theory it's a team vehicle, but those who suffer most from it are those in team vehicles. The only ones who don't suffer from it are aircav, the solists. The increased cert cost has made the Galaxy obsolete, because you can do the same (save dropping MAXes) with Mosquitos and with less threat of being shot down by Wasps, being OSed (too many CR5s) or getting picked off by the surplus of air (again cert increase). And oh. You can solo-killwhore with it too.

And I don't need to tell you what "MAXside" encompasses. Again, due to cert points.

Lastly, I don't know if you've got a Cr5, but command chat is currently unworkable due to the amount of Cr5s. It means there's too many egoes, incompetents, language barriers and conflicting interests in it. Again, not an improvement - though this is mostly a time thing and would have happened anyway (though the server merge made conflicts worse since people have different and conflicting 'command chat cultures'). And then I'm not even talking about the amount of OSes that go off in one fight.

Note that the amount of Cr5s has dropped by about 60% since the merge. They all unsubbed. Best state of the game? Not really.

[Rahl]

Sorry about your name. HanSime and HanSlime look the same to my tired eyes.

I'm not reading all that. Like I said, I like the changes. I think the game is better than ever. I think the core target audience for the game was too burned, is too cynical, too tired of failure and has moved on....hence the low pops.

If I had a time machine and took the game as it is today back to 2003 and it launched like this it would be a friggin' HUGE success....cause its better than ever.

This is all my reasoned and considered opinion.

[HanSime]

Apology accepted. Sorry about the snippy reply, was a bit annoyed with DarkFate on other forums...


As for your reasoned and considered opinion, still sounds very much like subjective wishfull thinking, tbh...

But since you've got not further interest to debate, I'd say we'll agree to disagree.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by NeoPhoenixTE

*munching popcorn*

Seriously, it's the first real posting we've had on these forums for months. :)

But eh, I'm generally siding with Rahl. I only started playing 2.5 years after release, so I wasn't around for the beginning (and have always known BFRs, etc). However, besides the population, I agree the overall game is better now than it was 3 years ago, though granted the major changes happened before my time. Many players don't like the changes because they provide counters to their particular style of gameplay, which they feel is the only way to play planetside.

[Marinealver]

MEh still havent hit the worst thing that makes planetside suck.

HAXor MAXs.

[HanSime]

Well if you discount the MAX, Flail and Reaver overuse, the major ping issues and hit detection and the presence of hackers, the situation has improved since 2,5 years ago. If it had deteriorated further there'd not be anyone playing. Though I don't think this state of the game can support lasting pops.

To state it's 'the best ever' is therefore bullcrap. Technically there are pretty much as numerous bugs and issues as there were years ago. Some changed, some got fixed, many remain and new bugs were introduced with new content or simply discovered over the course of years (for example: Router exploit).

What makes a real difference is that the state of the community is the worst ever.

The state of the community indicates the health of the game. We're running out of hitpoints.


Quovatis, it's not so much the "only way to play" (that's just the 1337 folks), as it's the "fastly more enjoyable state of gameplay" to play PlanetSide, despite technical issues.

When outfits were larger, you could have an entire outfit fight on one cont, bringing for example dozens of tanks. Today this is simply not possible without being farmed by some sort of uberweapon or the masses of Reavers (which simply didn't exist back then, Mossies and Reavers were a problem with hovercamping, but their numbers were lower). BFRs and Gal Gunships changed outdoor vehicle combat to be more focused on units with small and often selfish crews (particularly solo vehicles). The same current state of the game also pretty much obsoleted the transportation units. Not only where/are they too easy to 'farm' (and thus it's safer to solo), but it's also not needed as you are more flexible in killing/transportation on your own.


Hence why it was a good thing to limit certpoints, because that created a need for teamplay and teamplay units. As time progresses, you'll just see less and less variety in gameplay as more people gain access to the heaviest equipment available. They WILL stick to that because people are lazy and want instant satisfaction.

Uniformity is boring, bad and only makes the 1337-killwhore players feel special.

[Rahl]

Wow, do you even play?

I fly as much as I can. I get shit for kills. You must be the only idiot I ever Reaverspam with success. The number of AA weapons in the game is enough for me to solidly say that if you die to Air, you fucked up. Either you were off soloing where you have no business or you're just terrible.

MAXes, Reaver and Flail overuse. I see a theme. You can't kill big things and they make you angry. So, everyone should stop using them? Have you ever attacked a Flail? It gets to fire once every 3 seconds. It can't move for 5 seconds when you start attacking it. It can't hit anything near it. Dude, get some boomers.

MAX? Really? I mean, sure, the scatmax hurts, but the damn MAXes have been in the game since day one. If you haven't learned to cope why are you still playing? Get AV, get SA, get CE, get a tank, get a Reaver,...GET MAX.....or get some friends who have those certs.

I don't know the ping issues you talk about. Sure, some of the Chinese guys warp around a bit, but no worse than its been since day one. For years, I've played from the east coast with a friend in Alaska. Ping has been an issue once or twice. The networks in the country are amazing now. European players usually have even better networks. This just isn't an issue unless its your craptastic local provider.

Big outfits? Why? We have platoons, use them. Get your outfit to team up with another. Solve the problem. Don't whine.

This is just silly. You're just complaining. Look, I get it, its easy to get angry and shit on the game when you're not winning. But, you gotta get realistic. If you want to complain, I think CSHD, dated graphics, shitty base design, low populations and the lack of credit card requirement on free trials (which enables rinse and repeat hackers) are pretty valid topics. Reaverspam? Hah, no.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by HanSime

Quovatis, it's not so much the "only way to play" (that's just the 1337 folks), as it's the "fastly more enjoyable state of gameplay" to play PlanetSide, despite technical issues.

Says who? Who are you to say how the game should be enjoyable? No offense, but all the arguments you have presented are exactly what the "1337 folks" complain about. Anything that kills them that they don't normally use, they whine about. There is more to planetside than just mossies and HA, and that's why I enjoy the game. There are so many ways to approach the game and still have fun. If you are getting owned by something, there is always something you can get to counter it.

[HanSime]

Quovatis, you've said yourself you've never experienced the game as it was 'pre-BFR' or even 'pre-Flail'.

Isn't it odd how you claim we could not possible have had a better time before your experiences with PlanetSide? Can you imagine people - as a whole - had a better game experience prior to what you've seen? Are you saying there's absolutely no possibility there was more fun to be had simply because you've never experienced more than you have? You're late to arrive on the show and you're telling people who seen the whole show the best bits can only be found in the bit they've seen for themselves? Shortsighted.


You may think of it as subjective, but according to many, many 5-6 year veterans, including me, it was a much better game in the sense that everyone worked as a team, in large outfits with fast quantities of armoured combat and infantry combat which are impossible today without being farmed.

And it's why they quit and are still quitting because it gets worse.

Today's gameplay is about "me me me me me" and not about supporting the outfits and empire. There are hardly any decent sized outfits left and that should tell you something. We used to have outfits run with two platoons at a time and not just spam invite outfits, any kind of outfit. Now one outfit fielding more than two squads is rare, EVEN spaminvite outfits. Rahl, that you don't understand why big HEALTHY outfits are good for the game is symptomatic of post-BFR players who never experienced the game as it was. You don't know anything but small outfits and having to join up with randoms in a platoon, so how could it POSSIBLY be good to have full platoons of people you know full well, know what they can and can't do and base outfit and empire strategies on that? No. Let's just run around with random people every day so you're always stuck in mediocrity and lousy teamwork because you can't rely on the other and you don't 'feel' instinctively what the other people in your platoon are doing or going to do.

Ask ANY vet and they'd much prefer the pre-BFR (or even Core Combat) situation, with some of the positive changes that have been implemented, but without any of the negative ones.



Regarding the current situation, I'm complaining about the quantities available. It's not about 'getting owned' and not having a counter, it's about there being so many about counters become useless due to saturation. I'm fine with aircav flying about and killing stuff (if combattable), just that not everyone should have the option to be in aircav if they want to do other things too! The point of varied gameplay is that it's... varied!



As for you Rahl, please, grow up. Your analysis doesn't even come close.

Take out Flails with boomers? Yeah right, only really stupid Flail pilots die to boomers. You need five to blow one up, there's always more Flails and they often got AMP shield while a cloaker can only carry 5 boomers! Even if you can place 5, by the time you've placed the second boomer his friends already killed you or he undeployed and moved off. Flails are hardly ever spamming alone afterall. No, I jack them, hunt them down with Thunderers or Furies or if I have no other options: OS them (if they're not inside a capital shieldless capital or next to one and if they're poorly guarded - they tend to be way behind enemy lines with Skyguards and a tank or BFR guarding them). However, they always got easier means to defend than you have to attack due to logistics. You as attacker are usualy alone and thus easy to pick off and they as defender, are not. Once you've died, it'll take you a lot of time before you can engage them again, allowing them to spam free. Good gameplay. No really.

Killing them though doesn't help one bit: mod is underneath a capital shield (can't steal most mods anymore like you could pre-BFR since capitals didn't exist) and that allows them to pull one right after they respawned. Meanwhile, you've been hunt down by some aircavs or FV BFRs of theirs. They'll never be on vehicle timers and mostly spam while camping vehicle pads, disallowing people to have fun by playing the game and pulling those counters Quovatis talks about.

Now, the Flail could be a lot better and fun to play against if it required a Laze Pointer spotter. That way you'd have a more easy way to stop spam than fighting through all enemy lines and their last lines of defense at another heavily CE'd base with BFR guards. Unfortunately it doesn't and thus it's a camping vehicle. Not fun.

MAXes on their own or in small numbers aren't bad and are easy enough to combat. It's when there's 5 for every 5 grunts when it becomes annoying and you know what, as more people reach BR40 that'll gradually get worse.
They're not supposed to be omnipresent - but support infantry - in all too large quantities they obsolete other grunts in terms of firepower and endurance.

Yes they can't open doors or hack bases, but does that mean EVERYONE at all times should have access to UniMAX and not hacking a base makes that even? No! If everyone has a MAX that they can't hack is moot since anyone can stroll in unthreatened after a MAX crash comes through. If you don't see a problem with an overabundance of MAX suits than I'm done talking to you. Numbers of anything are a major balancing issue. Same goes for Reavers, but applies to outdoors combat.

Similarly with BFRs, there were people defending the early forms of BFRs where they were capable of taking on 5 tanks at the same time and winning. With the earliest incarnation of the Peregrine we once took on a platoon of VS and won. Two Magriders, one Reaver, three Mossies, a Tresher, two cloakers and 8 grunts, two with AV. The FV BFR was even worse. I don't know if you played during the early days of those, but there'd be 9 right outside of a base wall covering eachother while camping the doors and jumping up and down, up and down, up and down (no capacitator for jumping required). Not doing ANYTHING else and having semi-instagib firepower.

Yeah. Fun. Couldn't possibly imagine why we prefered the days of tanks which couldn't camp every single door at the same time while being EMPable so you could get out without being shot at. Or which you could kill before they could jump away. (Is still a bug with the FV BFR jumping while EMPed depending on ping).


As for ping... You're on the east coast, right next to the Gemini server in Virginia. How ODD you don't experience major problems with it... If you already don't have them, how could anyone else possibly have or experience them? Not a really good argument.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by HanSime

Quovatis, you've said yourself you've never experienced the game as it was 'pre-BFR' or even 'pre-Flail'.

Isn't it odd how you claim we could not possible have had a better time before your experiences with PlanetSide? Can you imagine people - as a whole - had a better game experience prior to what you've seen? Are you saying there's absolutely no possibility there was more fun to be had simply because you've never experienced more than you have? You're late to arrive on the show and you're telling people who seen the whole show the best bits can only be found in the bit they've seen for themselves? Shortsighted.

I never claimed that. I said in my opinion, it is better now than when I joined. I'm not making that same judgment for you or anyone else. If you don't agree, fine. But telling everyone else that the only way the game should be played and the only way to enjoy the game is to go back in time to a period when YOU liked it the best is a little arrogant, don't ya think? There are plenty of players playing now that would not enjoy themselves as much during the first few years, and plenty playing back then that would not play now. I enjoy the new content and even if I did experience the first two years, I probably wouldn't want to go back. There are just so many more facets of the game now then there were back then. As Rahl said, who knows how successful the game would have been if they released it as it is today back in 2003? We'll never know for sure, but I venture to guess it wouldn't make much difference in terms of popularity.

Yes teamwork and populations are down, but I don't think you can blame that solely on the changes made to the game. The game is quite old and many players have simply moved on to other games and lost interest. Game content may have played a role, yes, but the population would have declined regardless, as there were simply not enough drastic updates to the core game engine to keep up with other rival games. There are many more factors that affect game populations than just game content. Hell, Johari and Konreid were merged due to low populations even during the "good old days". Population decline happens with every game eventually. There is no stopping it.

I'm not saying I like the game exactly as it is. I would like to see changes to Flails and MAXes too, but not the changes you would like. I don't see BFRs as a big deal at all. They don't really affect battles that much.

[HanSime]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

I never claimed that. I said in my opinion, it is better now than when I joined. I'm not making that same judgment for you or anyone else. If you don't agree, fine. But telling everyone else that the only way the game should be played and the only way to enjoy the game is to go back in time to a period when YOU liked it the best is a little arrogant, don't ya think?

Considering it would bring back most of my outfit, no I don't think it's arrogant. It's realistic. In fact, SOE considered it but can't remove BFRs because they sold an expansion based on them and are thus legally forced to provide them (otherwise they'd be suable for false marketing).

However, I'm not saying either of the bolded parts. What I'm saying is it would be more enjoyable than today. Today compared to the introduction of Aftershock has improved considerably, but it's nowhere near as fun as it used to be. That has largely to do with the outfits too, but it won't ever be that way anymore thanks to SOE.

I'd even say they should have forced people to pick one empire upon mergings, (allowing them to change their characters empire to one, that shouldn't have been too hard a database coding issue). The reason is when you had one empire to play on, outfits were a tighter group and the members would always be online on your side. This allowed you to develop as a group instead of a collective of individuals.

There are plenty of players playing now that would not enjoy themselves as much during the first few years, and plenty playing back then that would not play now.

Tbh, it's probably safe to say that the ones who would not play now fastly outnumber the ones that would play.

1. PlanetSide's height of customers was over 20.000 subs, which is a long time ago. Clearly the appeal was there, but dropped within just a few months of introduction of very heavy equipment. The people that enjoy BFRs still on the entire current playerbase are still few in numbers and still (in part wrongly) looked down upon by the majority of players due to association with previous incarnations of their equipment. However, you can conclude: the majority of players doesn't want heavy equipment to dominate gameplay!
2. Today's players expect much better graphics, so you wouldn't get in more players today. But I honestly can't imagine the current show of gameplay being interesting
3. If the game would be introduced now as it were during launch, there'd be a lot less cohesion and the servers would die faster than during one server one empire.
4. SOE's reputation doesn't exactly appeal to a lot of people anymore...

I enjoy the new content and even if I did experience the first two years, I probably wouldn't want to go back. There are just so many more facets of the game now then there were back then. As Rahl said, who knows how successful the game would have been if they released it as it is today back in 2003? We'll never know for sure, but I venture to guess it wouldn't make much difference in terms of popularity.

Yes teamwork and populations are down, but I don't think you can blame that solely on the changes made to the game. The game is quite old and many players have simply moved on to other games and lost interest. Game content may have played a role, yes, but the population would have declined regardless, as there were simply not enough drastic updates to the core game engine to keep up with other rival games. There are many more factors that affect game populations than just game content. Hell, Johari and Konreid were merged due to low populations even during the "good old days". Population decline happens with every game eventually. There is no stopping it.

I'm not saying I like the game exactly as it is. I would like to see changes to Flails and MAXes too, but not the changes you would like. I don't see BFRs as a big deal at all. They don't really affect battles that much.

I believe they were a bit overzealous with the expected amounts of players at first, so to attain the amount of players they wanted per server they merged those servers. Them not doing any marketing could have been a cause for that (still is). Johari and Konreid were merged pretty soon after release afterall.

BFRs as they are now aren't impacting half as much as they used to, but they do impact battles by simply slowing them down considerably due to it's shield regenerating. IMO they should have been integrated like other units. As they were - and still are - they have entirely different rules and don't seem to be designed for the same game as other units. That is bad IMO.

[Marinealver]

They could have given A2A more love. But I know TR uses that the most. Be honest You'll be suprised how fast a GalGunship can go down. There was a couple of times we didn't last 2 minuets. Because there was TR AA MAXS and BFRS and Wasps and Reavers.