Planetside 2

[Mrbloodworth]

Planetside 2 has a 20% increase in power cap. Global agenda had way way more.  For instance, the +25% Nano armor, you gain mabye one or two full damage bullet hit. That's with in effective range of the shooting gun. For the Vast majority of things, its all options or Play-style accompaniment.

None of it will make you immune to Noob bullets.

[Zetor]

If you're strictly talking about weapon sidegrades / upgrades, maybe that 20% is true, though I'd still get more grenades, etc... grenades were HUGE in my limited play experience so far, as they gib zergs of people like nothing.

20% is not true for support roles. A fully upgraded medic gun rezzes people 65% faster and heals them for 50% more, it also rezzes people at 100% hp instead of the 20%-ish you get at level 1 (which often results in the rezzee dying again before you can heal them up); you also get 4 meters to revive range, which is probably enough to stay in cover while channeling the beam. Similarly, a fully upgraded repair tool channels/repairs significantly faster (no tooltips ingame, but I expect it to be in line with the medic upgrades). There are no drawbacks to upgrading, either. This is in addition to any other 'straight up' power increases you get from armor, less cooldown / better healing on your class ability, etc. That stuff adds up. Would you take a medic who needs to rez from point blank range and take ~4 seconds to do it while also not having any extra survivability, or would you take a medic who can rez from a safe distance in ~1.5-2 seconds and carry 3 aoe rez grenades at the same time while also having more hp / more resistance to aoe damage? Never mind if those two medics actually have to defend themselves from a long-range attacker.

e: also mentioned earlier in the thread, but you need to unlock certs to even use the secondary weapon on some vehicles? Sounds pretty vertical to me.

[Nebu]

Apparently you guys have been playing long enough that all of this is second nature to you.  Here's my experience:

1) Log in with my station account.

2) Pick a realm and server.

3) Pick one of 4 faces.

4) I'm dropped on the planet and killed repeatedly. 

No idea what class/role I am.  No idea how to communicate with anyone.  No idea how to become a class (I prefer healer).  Nothing.  All I see is kill spam from level 20+ people mowing me down the instant I land.  The only information I'm given after my first death is a green icon on my map saying "Action here".

It's a pretty shitty system for getting me (or anyone) excited about the game, the war, and meeting people.  Seriously Bloodworth, how can you not see this?

[Malakili]

Apparently you guys have been playing long enough that all of this is second nature to you.  Here's my experience:

1) Log in with my station account.

2) Pick a realm and server.

3) Pick one of 4 faces.

4) I'm dropped on the planet and killed repeatedly. 

No idea what class/role I am.  No idea how to communicate with anyone.  No idea how to become a class (I prefer healer).  Nothing.  All I see is kill spam from level 20+ people mowing me down the instant I land.  The only information I'm given after my first death is a green icon on my map saying "Action here".

It's a pretty shitty system for getting me (or anyone) excited about the game, the war, and meeting people.  Seriously Bloodworth, how can you not see this?

The new player experience is very bad for this reason.   I don't know why they decided to drop people nto the fight rather than having people spawn at the Warp Gate right off the bat.

To be helpful:  When you die you will be taken to a screen where you can change your class and select your spawn location.  The class select is the set of icons under the map that say "Spawn as."  The list on the upper right is the set of locations you can spawn at.  Sunderers are troop transports that can deploy into mobile spawns.  The other spawn points are static points tied to a specific facility.   The "Warp Gate" spawn point is your faction's main foothold on the continent that you are on, and is a good place to spawn if you don'tknow what is going on, because you can usually find someone spawning in a Galaxy (Air troop transport/gunship) that will ferry you out to the battle.

You can also access terminals at the Warp Gate which will allow you to spawn your own air or ground vehicles, a terminal which allows you to change your class/loadout from in the game, and a terminal which will allow you to warp to one of the other continents if you don't like the battles going on where you are.

[Nebu]

To be helpful:  When you die you will be taken to a screen where you can change your class and select your spawn location.  The class select is the set of icons under the map that say "Spawn as."  The list on the upper right is the set of locations you can spawn at.  Sunderers are troop transports that can deploy into mobile spawns.  The other spawn points are static points tied to a specific facility.   The "Warp Gate" spawn point is your faction's main foothold on the continent that you are on, and is a good place to spawn if you don'tknow what is going on, because you can usually find someone spawning in a Galaxy (Air troop transport/gunship) that will ferry you out to the battle.

You can also access terminals at the Warp Gate which will allow you to spawn your own air or ground vehicles, a terminal which allows you to change your class/loadout from in the game, and a terminal which will allow you to warp to one of the other continents if you don't like the battles going on where you are.

Thank you for this.  If I had been given this information in game (I don't know... through a tutorial?!?!) it would have made things so much less frustrating. 

[Falconeer]

No idea what class/role I am.  No idea how to communicate with anyone.  No idea how to become a class (I prefer healer).  Nothing. 

So you don't get this screen every time you die?

[MediumHigh]

No idea what class/role I am.  No idea how to communicate with anyone.  No idea how to become a class (I prefer healer).  Nothing. 

So you don't get this screen every time you die?

MMORPG players can't read. Unless its a wiki-page 

[Miasma]

It took me like two days to realize the people with first aid squares over their heads aren't medics, they are people who need healing.

The best idea for new players, after you get killed out of the drop pod, is to respawn all the way back at your warpgate and slowly go through all the menus, weapons, look at all the terminals.  You should also run around a bit, the towers outside of the gate will show you the vertical transport beams, the catapult pads and turrets.

I intentionally played slower yesterday and learned a fair bit.

My question, what is the key command to increase the size of the mini map?

It's been linked before but the video tutorials are good.  At least look at the "first hour" and "base layout" ones.

http://www.planetside2.com/game-tutorials

[Nebu]

So you don't get this screen every time you die?

Apparently I missed that part.  I was too busy trying to figure out which invisible level 21 person killed me and where I would respawn next. 

[Tale]

My question, what is the key command to increase the size of the mini map?

defaults to H

[Trippy]

It's a good game that they introduce like shit. It's also free. Not sure why you want to make the snap judgement, but you should give it a shot (and watch the tutorial vids, they're useful at times).

Why the snap judgement?  Because there are already a number of online FPS games that are much better crafted.  The only thing PS2 has going for it is scale and the fact that I have a bunch of station cash coins from EQ2 that I have nothing to spend on.  I watched a tutorial for like 30 mins before playing the game and I still didn't know what to do once I was dropped in front of enemy sights.  The UI and implementation are terrible for new players... and they need new players. 

Other MP FPSes aren't much better in this regard. If you dropped into a Counter-Strike, MP Call of Duty or Battlefield game for the very first time, things are likely to be very confusing at first and you are going to die a lot until you learn the maps and how the objectives work. Not that PS2 couldn't use a lot of improvement in the FTUE and UI as people have discussed but MP FPSes typically are not newbie friendly.

[Nebu]

Other MP FPSes aren't much better in this regard. If you dropped into a Counter-Strike, MP Call of Duty or Battlefield game for the very first time, things are likely to be very confusing at first and you are going to die a lot until you learn the maps and how the objectives work. Not that PS2 couldn't use a lot of improvement in the FTUE and UI as people have discussed but MP FPSes typically are not newbie friendly.

Fair enough.  Perhaps I just prefer the slower, more strategic pace of WoT and WoWP.

[Goumindong]

OK, so people have been saying PS2 has purely horizontal progression. Yet the two classes I play (medic and engineer) have a straight-up "x% better" progression on their main skill, and many other straight-up upgrades all over the place (x% more health, carry y more grenades, take z% less damage from explosions). It is also very hard for me to land hits with the starter NC carbine - I imagine a scope or the anti-recoil upgrades would help a lot without any significant drawbacks.

(Global Agenda did progression better imo, but they also fell short - many of the lowest-end weapons were inferior to ones unlocked later)

Generally power progression is horizontal once you've maxed out one particular area. I.E. You can have 25% more health, but not 25% more health and 2 more grenades. The exceptions to this are generally the class tools, but none of those will help you kill anyone any faster.

Raw power progression maxes out, i think somewhere around 2x after all multipliers. I.E. you can get guns and equipment that are strictly superior and get more health, so if you have 25% more health and hit 25% harder you're about 1.56 times stronger than the average noob. If they can aim, they're still going to plunk you.

My question, what is the key command to increase the size of the mini map?

H


-------------------------------------------------

Some general tips for my F13 Brothers.

Infiltrators:
1) You can stealth and aim at the same time. Many snipers do not realize this and stick around zoomed in looking for targets. Stealth(f), look for targets, hold your breath(shift), unstealth right before your aim steadies, then shoot.

2) You can hack enemy terminals and turrets. Walk up to them and press e. If you have an enemy turret and an enemy is inside it, it pops them out. Turn around and put some pistol rounds in their bewildered head. Generally hacking enemy terminals and turrets is your only strategic use in a greater fight.

3) Use your pistol. Your pistol, even above the battle rifles, is probably your best short-mid range weapon. If you're NC you have the best pistol hands down, you can outduel any other infiltrator and sometimes combat classes if you're quick.

4) Positioning is king. You're no good sniping where your allies are since this is where all the enemies guns and rockets are pointed. You need to get to a position where you can harass strategic points or enemies. I.E. Shoot the engineers repairing vehicles, shoot the medics reviving heavies, shoot people at vehicle terminals etc.

5) If you're NC your starting rifle is golden, if you're Vanu or TR you should buy the cheapest bolt action rifle asap. While there are advantages to the semi-automatic guns its better to be able to 1 shot kill. The best sniper rifle is, almost always, the high velocity bolt action, but its not worth the 1000 certs.

6) If you DO have to use a semi-automatic gun spend some time getting the rhythm of shooting down. After your shot, if you don't move your mouse your aim will go right back exactly to where you were last aiming. If you know the timing right you can put two shots fast enough that very few people will react in time. The reason the bolt action rifles are better is because one hit is all you can generally get on moving enemies, and two body shots quickly will generally get you a kill

Medics:

1) Don't revive people in the line of fire. It doesn't help even if it is free XP.

2) Don't get special grenades they're not worth it

Engineers:

1) Your turret does less damage than your primary gun, its main advantage is its long firing time and front shield. If you can get it set up, try to do so in a place you can't get sniped from.

2) Remember to throw down ammo, its free XP and everyone needs it.

3) Pair up with friendly max's. Stand behind them and heal them as they become massive murdering machines of mayhem.

4) Press e to "compromise" generators/spawn units etc. You get a kill worth of XP for this and its strategically valuable. Similarly you can stabilize them as well.

Heavy Assault:

1) Turn your shield on if you're falling to absorb fall damage into your shield rather than your health.

2) Your primary asset above other classes is your large ammo capacity (with the exception of Vanu until you buy a gun) and your rocket launcher, not your shield (though you should use it).

3) Your shield will give away your position, don't activate it until they're shooting at you.

4) Don't be afraid to waste rockets if you have an engi near, so long as they're dropping ammo.

[penfold]

I installed this yesterday, after a few games of dying randomly I watched "the first hour" tutorial video and it managed to get me up and running with classes, vehicles and how to use the map to find battles.  I'm getting into it now, its a bit messy and imprecise though, and not running too well on my PC even on low settings.

[Tale]

Whats worth getting? (or can you get it all through normal gameplay)

I looked at the weapon list during beta and the list seemed to contain lots of very similar weapons and was hugely confusing

The infantry weapons aren't too different but some are better than others, you can select the compare checkbox to see the difference.

Controversial tip: you only want one weapon anyway. The game is designed for you to become a specialist. It's going to take all your cert points to follow an upgrade path for this one weapon. So choose it wisely.

What you're comparing is un-upgraded infantry weapons, which are only slightly different when you first buy them. But the weapons are very different in their upgrade paths and what you can create with them.

For example, as VS light assault (and engineer, which shares carbine choices), I have picked the Solstice SF carbine. The only difference when you first buy it is that it has a single-fire (SF) mode. I want to add a laser sight and a forward grip to help me aim. But it also has certs on the list that the other carbines don't have: add a grenade launcher, add a single-bullet shotgun attachment, etc. All very expensive, but ultimately diversifying me from other light assault - and making me an unknown quantity to the enemy.

[Zetor]

Thanks for the tips, some interesting stuff there (especially how engineers can compromise stuff... otoh I haven't had too many good experiences healing maxes, they tend to get 3-shot no matter what. Need Better Friends.  )

OK, so people have been saying PS2 has purely horizontal progression. Yet the two classes I play (medic and engineer) have a straight-up "x% better" progression on their main skill, and many other straight-up upgrades all over the place (x% more health, carry y more grenades, take z% less damage from explosions). It is also very hard for me to land hits with the starter NC carbine - I imagine a scope or the anti-recoil upgrades would help a lot without any significant drawbacks.

(Global Agenda did progression better imo, but they also fell short - many of the lowest-end weapons were inferior to ones unlocked later)

Generally power progression is horizontal once you've maxed out one particular area. I.E. You can have 25% more health, but not 25% more health and 2 more grenades. The exceptions to this are generally the class tools, but none of those will help you kill anyone any faster.

Raw power progression maxes out, i think somewhere around 2x after all multipliers. I.E. you can get guns and equipment that are strictly superior and get more health, so if you have 25% more health and hit 25% harder you're about 1.56 times stronger than the average noob. If they can aim, they're still going to plunk you.
(snip)

Good to hear that the 3 grenade thing is exclusive with the +hp, I thought you could get them all at once (since they were parallel certs). I guess my main beef is that as a newbie medic/engie I'm a lot less useful to a team than someone who's level 20, no matter how well I play. Even in Global Agenda the level 1 medigun was as powerful as the higher level options (less versatile, perhaps).

[Goumindong]

Yea, in order to get the bonuses you have to equip them.

So you can only carry one type of grenade, you can only carry one type of mine, you can only have one special ability (for classes that get different types of abilities) etc etc.

This also means that vehicles carry say, flares OR better armor. Smoke screen OR Radar.

Good to hear that the 3 grenade thing is exclusive with the +hp, I thought you could get them all at once (since they were parallel certs). I guess my main beef is that as a newbie medic/engie I'm a lot less useful to a team than someone who's level 20, no matter how well I play. Even in Global Agenda the level 1 medigun was as powerful as the higher level options (less versatile, perhaps).

Consider that the upgraded medigun/engigun is really expensive. The people who have it are not level 20, they're level 30. Trust me you're still valuable as a medic/engi when its not upgraded, getting it to level 2 or 3 is plenty and will happen really fast.

Edit: Getting a better weapon will do less for you in terms of how well you can kill people than just figuring out what is going on/the controls etc.

E.G. My longest killstreak as a sniper is, i think, 10 kills. I didn't get this by being an awesome shot, I got this by finding a position that the enemy did not scan for snipers after which I proceeded to kill them all. My most points/death as an infiltrator didn't come from sniping, it came from backhacking the entire top area of a enemy tech plant. There are anti-ground turrets covering the enemy spawn and so i pretty much got critical assist bonuses on everyone that came out(and a few kills) in addition to shutting off their anti-air and air spawning capabilities.

[01101010]

E.G. My longest killstreak as a sniper is, i think, 10 kills. I didn't get this by being an awesome shot, I got this by finding a position that the enemy did not scan for snipers after which I proceeded to kill them all. My most points/death as an infiltrator didn't come from sniping, it came from backhacking the entire top area of a enemy tech plant. There are anti-ground turrets covering the enemy spawn and so i pretty much got critical assist bonuses on everyone that came out(and a few kills) in addition to shutting off their anti-air and air spawning capabilities.

Went on a tear of 17::0 last night playing absolutely without a care of living or dying. Ran into the fray spraying and praying and fleeing as soon as I needed a reload. I play so much better loose than actually trying to not die. And yes, some of those kills (4) came from a grenade. 

[Kageru]

Some people on the forums pointed out that the PS2 bases are designed to be indefensible, filled with easy attack points and lots of random internal clutter so there's no concept of a front line and rarely of meaningful choke points.  The game has been designed to favor attacking and death match inside a base rather than any sort of organised siege and defence. I assume to make it more interesting to the lower attention span of the COD/Console generation. The instant action would be part of this too.

Watching some PS1 gameplay and the bases look so much more structured and sane, GW2 too.

[tmp]

The new player experience is very bad for this reason.   I don't know why they decided to drop people nto the fight rather than having people spawn at the Warp Gate right off the bat.

In all fairness, the game spells it out on the launcher in big letters, "NOOB PLAYERS, CLICK HERE FOR INFO VIDEOS ON HOW SHIT WORKS". The ones linked by other people in this thread and deemed "helpful". If someone opts not to but go straight in, then welp.

edit: on different note, i got to experience first hand that mentioned earlier server bug which renders grenades not exploding, ammo packs not activating etc. Vehicles aren't exploded after they lose all hp, either. So guess whatever they tried in the patch didn't really work.

[Trippy]

Some people on the forums pointed out that the PS2 bases are designed to be indefensible, filled with easy attack points and lots of random internal clutter so there's no concept of a front line and rarely of meaningful choke points.  The game has been designed to favor attacking and death match inside a base rather than any sort of organised siege and defence. I assume to make it more interesting to the lower attention span of the COD/Console generation. The instant action would be part of this too.

Watching some PS1 gameplay and the bases look so much more structured and sane, GW2 too.

Yes that's right, for PS2 they deliberately wanted to get rid of the "turtling" that would occur when attacking bases where it could be difficult to get to a control console or the power generator because of the way the bases were laid out and how well they were defended. Often times in PS1 you would literally have to "siege" a base by surrounded it and preventing any attempts to resupply* the base's nanite supply.

* Galaxy ANT drops into besieged bases were hella fun

[Tale]

Some people on the forums pointed out that the PS2 bases are designed to be indefensible, filled with easy attack points and lots of random internal clutter so there's no concept of a front line and rarely of meaningful choke points.  The game has been designed to favor attacking and death match inside a base rather than any sort of organised siege and defence. I assume to make it more interesting to the lower attention span of the COD/Console generation. The instant action would be part of this too.

Watching some PS1 gameplay and the bases look so much more structured and sane, GW2 too.

I saw that post on the forums too (which are overwhelmingly full of whiners), but last night I was involved in a 40-minute defensive battle that succeeded. VS defenders being attacked by large waves of NC. I don't know how many were involved, but it was huge and felt evenly matched. I spent the whole time up in a tower as an engineer, supplying ammo, repairing maxes, repairing turrets, alongside a medic who was just as busy with casualties. Everybody got into a routine with my resupplying. I got three kills with my carbine when enemies made it into the tower.

It was so intense that when we eventually won and got XP for the defense, there were celebratory yells and area chat about our victory, instead of everyone just moving on to the next fight. Maybe we just got lucky, but I'd like to think it was down to a good combination of teamwork and tactics. The bases might be more defensible when people become more experienced with the game, gain certs and team up.

[Sky]

I've played a ton of defense, it's fun and it can actually work. And you need a lot of people playing properly to pull it off, though a tight outfit will dominate as usual. There's some folks on TR that are just scary organized with tricksies and whatnot. I prefer fighting Vanu, they topple much easier thus far.

I was in a running defense against TR and they kept gal dropping and flanking the shit out of everyone. It was great, but I died so much I just moved over to fighting VS ^^

[Jimbo]

Does anyone remember the guy who used to write for either Lum's or SND, about PvP, his out fit was TR and they were pretty freaking crazy and organized.  Plus they don't mind taking scrubs to boost numbers as long as you go and do as they tell you to do things.  So yeah, if some of the TR groups come back that I remember from PS1, TR is going to be pretty tough.

Not that I'm not having fun as a Smurf    playing with the Evil Chickens is pretty fun too.

They freaking nerfed the Sunderer!  Used to be it had a ton of armor, now it is like easy to take down with a tank.

[Malakili]

Some people on the forums pointed out that the PS2 bases are designed to be indefensible, filled with easy attack points and lots of random internal clutter so there's no concept of a front line and rarely of meaningful choke points.  The game has been designed to favor attacking and death match inside a base rather than any sort of organised siege and defence. I assume to make it more interesting to the lower attention span of the COD/Console generation. The instant action would be part of this too.

Watching some PS1 gameplay and the bases look so much more structured and sane, GW2 too.

I've noticed this as well.  It seems like they are deliberately trying to make strategy less important.  If you show up with more people and shove a base, you WILL take it.  Defenders advantage seems very weak in this game, which is only made worse by the fact that there is no real sense of attrition, which means you can't really make an attack stall out besides having such an overwhelming force that you manage to kill off all of their forward spawns one after the other before they can set more up.    It is also for this reason that as soon as a defense does happen to win, they immediately push an adjacent base, because it probably means you have the superior numbers anyway.  There is very little strategy involved in the game at all so far.  I hope that perhaps it remains undiscovered and we will see some more emerge at some point.

[brellium]

Does anyone remember the guy who used to write for either Lum's or SND, about PvP, his out fit was TR and they were pretty freaking crazy and organized.  Plus they don't mind taking scrubs to boost numbers as long as you go and do as they tell you to do things.  So yeah, if some of the TR groups come back that I remember from PS1, TR is going to be pretty tough.

Not that I'm not having fun as a Smurf    playing with the Evil Chickens is pretty fun too.

They freaking nerfed the Sunderer!  Used to be it had a ton of armor, now it is like easy to take down with a tank.

KAAOS is running again on Connery as TR, =(.

I am now forced to decide if I'm going to run with KAAOS TR, or Bellum Aeternus VS on the same server.

Sunderer can still take down tanks, I watched one duel the general purpose tank, and then the TR main battle tank and survive them.  It was funny to watch.

[tmp]

IIRC one of Sunderer certs is overall upgrade to the armour (while tanks have to cert each side separately) so perhaps it gets tougher with that.

[Nija]

Does anyone remember the guy who used to write for either Lum's or SND, about PvP, his out fit was TR and they were pretty freaking crazy and organized.  Plus they don't mind taking scrubs to boost numbers as long as you go and do as they tell you to do things.  So yeah, if some of the TR groups come back that I remember from PS1, TR is going to be pretty tough.

You've gotta be talking about Buzzcut and The Enclave.

That dude is insane.

http://ru.twitch.tv/buzzcutpsycho/videos

Listen to him yell at everyone. Pick any video, jump to any spot in it and wait for a minute or two.

[WayAbvPar]

Hey Evil Chicken folks- GET ON TS when you squad up! It makes things SO much easier, and a lot more fun too. I tried to post the TS server info in the message of the day, but apparently that is bugged. I have seen most of you on comms already, but for your holdouts- we promise to mock you. Not more than anyone else, at least  

[Brogarn]

I'm with Nebu. Tried it. Felt like I got punched in the dick repeatedly on drop. Invisible dick punching, I might add. Figured that if I really wanted to play it, I could probably get past the learning curve and succeed, but felt I already have a ton of free to play options out there, or even subbed ones for that matter, that don't have that, so why bother. Plus the cheesy way to increase cert gains made me cringe. Anyways, moved on.

[Zetor]

I came to the same conclusion. I posted my death breakdown a few pages back, but basically only 10% was from people I could actually see, rest was from fliers/snipers/grenades/friendly vehicles, sometimes while I was trying to repair them (). About the large scale mass combat aspect: eh, I logged into GW2 yesterday and had more fun in 2 hours doing their version of RVR (WvWvW) than I did in the entire weekend I was playing PS2. I see what the game is trying to do, but It Is Not For Me, and that's fine.

It did make me want to check out Global Agenda again (game's completely dead, btw).

[Druzil]

Just a tip, this was not clear to me from the cert screen - I actually bought the Nano Armor 3 before I realized I had to equip it on the Suit section of my load-out.  So spending certs on all 3 of the shield regen speed, the flak and the nano is a waste since you only get one at a time.

Other than that I'm having a blast.  I like the base capture on this more than on PS1, it's more fun to be in the base than out on a hill firing at a wall for hours on end.  I think that's why I always like the tower captures in PS1.  I like the Bio lab much better now that there are the jump pads out on the sides and not just the middle teleporters.  I don't understand how to assault the tech plant yet.  Is light assault basically the only people capable of getting into the shield room?

[kaid]

Thanks for the tips, some interesting stuff there (especially how engineers can compromise stuff... otoh I haven't had too many good experiences healing maxes, they tend to get 3-shot no matter what. Need Better Friends.  )

OK, so people have been saying PS2 has purely horizontal progression. Yet the two classes I play (medic and engineer) have a straight-up "x% better" progression on their main skill, and many other straight-up upgrades all over the place (x% more health, carry y more grenades, take z% less damage from explosions). It is also very hard for me to land hits with the starter NC carbine - I imagine a scope or the anti-recoil upgrades would help a lot without any significant drawbacks.

(Global Agenda did progression better imo, but they also fell short - many of the lowest-end weapons were inferior to ones unlocked later)

Generally power progression is horizontal once you've maxed out one particular area. I.E. You can have 25% more health, but not 25% more health and 2 more grenades. The exceptions to this are generally the class tools, but none of those will help you kill anyone any faster.

Raw power progression maxes out, i think somewhere around 2x after all multipliers. I.E. you can get guns and equipment that are strictly superior and get more health, so if you have 25% more health and hit 25% harder you're about 1.56 times stronger than the average noob. If they can aim, they're still going to plunk you.
(snip)

Good to hear that the 3 grenade thing is exclusive with the +hp, I thought you could get them all at once (since they were parallel certs). I guess my main beef is that as a newbie medic/engie I'm a lot less useful to a team than someone who's level 20, no matter how well I play. Even in Global Agenda the level 1 medigun was as powerful as the higher level options (less versatile, perhaps).

I found this out the hard way the armor slot things are exclusive. Basically you can have one thing "Equiped" in the armor slot and all the options in the certs there are different items to slot there. I wound up wasting some certs so figure out what you want and focus on it pretty much.

As for engineers make sure you drop your ammo kits I found this out eventually that pretty much the ammo kits are your biggest source of constant XP rather than repairing things. Baring finding a good max to rid nursemaid on the ammo kits are hands down the biggest support xp for engineers atm. Find a group of heavies shooting rockets drop the ammo kit and watch the +12 xp's fly.

Really for a new person one of the best things you can do while getting used to the game is combat medic. Its probably the easiest way to get certs early on and your job is to follow the herd so you get to figure out what objectives need to get taken out as you follow people doing it and even if you want to fight the combat medic basic gun is pretty damn solid I was getting really good kills with it.

[kaid]

Some people on the forums pointed out that the PS2 bases are designed to be indefensible, filled with easy attack points and lots of random internal clutter so there's no concept of a front line and rarely of meaningful choke points.  The game has been designed to favor attacking and death match inside a base rather than any sort of organised siege and defence. I assume to make it more interesting to the lower attention span of the COD/Console generation. The instant action would be part of this too.

Watching some PS1 gameplay and the bases look so much more structured and sane, GW2 too.

Yes that's right, for PS2 they deliberately wanted to get rid of the "turtling" that would occur when attacking bases where it could be difficult to get to a control console or the power generator because of the way the bases were laid out and how well they were defended. Often times in PS1 you would literally have to "siege" a base by surrounded it and preventing any attempts to resupply* the base's nanite supply.

* Galaxy ANT drops into besieged bases were hella fun

Yup the old base sieges are not in ps2. That said there are still some bases where the fight to retake them is pretty insane. Fighting in the biolabs is usually pretty ferocious given those there are only a few ways into them more than ps1 but taking  a biolab is pretty damn evil. There are also a few map areas that geographically make assaults very difficult(I am looking at you crown). Seriously the crown is up there with snowfall graveyard for pvp black holes of DOOM and death. Once you capture it you are on the tallest mountain around and all the roads leading up to it come up narrow valleys. These turn into massive pathways of death as fire rains down on you from above. It turns into a massive armor/air/sniper duel. Ironic thing we got most of our force pinned in defending the crown and we had almost as hard time fighting our way back out of it as they did to get into it.

[Goumindong]

especially how engineers can compromise stuff

In other "this game has terrible ways to introduce people to mechanics..." news

Turns out everyone can compromise stuff, only Engi's can stabilize things