Planetside 2

[kaid]

It doesn't really help that you can carry 2 c4 blocks for an additional 400 certs, considering that it's really really easy to die while you are trying to place it. Maybe I just need more practice :/

C4 is better anti personal than it is anti vehical. It is ideal for cap point defense. If you know the enemy is in your base taking cap points its hilarious to drop some C4 by the cap point and sit on the roof as light assault. When somebody comes to try to cap it BOOOM dead. Basically plant it where you KNOW the enemy has to go and when you see them try for it BOOM.

[Kageru]

I'm hoping the bouncing betties from the engineer should do that.

Really the strategic level of this game is flat. There's no feeling of resource depletion to make you care too much about territories. There's no shrinking front to force co-operation amongst the defenders or real satisfaction for the winners. There's no story to the movements and progression on the map because they feel just like disconnected, fragile and characterless flags.

Which means it ends up feeling like a rather laggy and random fps. It's fun to watch, and players are helpless in the face of the grinding certs pellet dispenser, but I really think a lot of people will just get bored and drift away in time.

[kaid]

That is why some of the future adds they are talking about are important. Adding in actual harvestable resources and lockable continents. Right now the problem is even if you take over everything thing on a continent you cannot drive them out of their warpgates so they can just regroup and push out again.

I think PS2 is in a pretty good spot good game now and lots of potential for future growth. I get into enough epic fights that even though victory is not super meaningful right now it is fun. Was on esimer last night and were having just epic back and forth fights between two bases where we would push almost taking their base then NC pushed us all the way back almost taking our base. There had to be a few hundred people in that fight probably a good 20 or so tanks and as many planes zipping around. That kind of fight is why I really enjoy ps1 and ps2 it is hard to compare it to the consoles 8v8 pvp or even 32v32 on big servers for PC fps games.

When the fights start clicking it is epic and that is the really important thing if they can get that right then giving better rewards for victory or making resources more valuable is a pretty simple thing going forward.

[Mrbloodworth]

NVM. Ill come back when I can word things better. I disagree with most of what Kageru  said.

[Speedy Cerviche]

YAY BF2142!! 

Going to need a shit load more skyguards... ones that actually work would be posh.

I've been saying they need BF2142 titans for over a year now. Those were great and would be even better in PS2 cuz in 2142 they were limited as map objectives while in PS2 they can actually be strategic capital ships.

I agree with you Kageru btw, it's kind of just a limited sort of bland FPS right now but has a solid platform and a lot of potential if SOE committs to keep adding more MMO persistent elements and more meat to warfare.

[schild]

This is out?

[Nija]

Every operation should end with an Alamo-style hold.

We held it for about 90 minutes last night - started with 10-12 people and attracted 40-60 by the end of it.

The Ascent 11/29/2012 Never Forget.

http://imgur.com/nQJlE

[Trippy]

That is awesome, for real

[Sky]

Now that looks like a good time!

[Paelos]

So for someone that has never played PS before, can you jump into this and "get it" without a whole shitload of background reading offline? I define shitload as more than 2 hours of reading just so I can start playing the game without getting my head blown off upon spawn.

[Malakili]

So for someone that has never played PS before, can you jump into this and "get it" without a whole shitload of background reading offline? I define shitload as more than 2 hours of reading just so I can start playing the game without getting my head blown off upon spawn.

Because Planetside 2 has a shitty new player experience, you will die your first time, however, I gave a quick rundown for...Sky I think (turned out to be Nebu)... a few pages ago.  Here it is: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=18301.msg1135555#msg1135555  That should get you off and running.  

In terms of the base mechanics of actually playing, if you have played any Battlefield you'll know how to play this.  The gameplay itself is fairly straightforward.  The interface is kind of bad, so it isn't necessarily immediately obvious what is going on all the time, and that is probably the biggest hurdle.

[Falconeer]

Paelos,

documentation is terrible and first impact is terrifying at best. You will die 30 times before scoring a kill or understanding what is going on. In my opinion though, that makes sense. You enter the game, a furious three-way open world PvP only game with ZERO exprience, while every single moving thing has at least 1 minute more experience than you (usually more). If you can stand dying, if you can accept the idea that there's NO reason for you not to die over and over when you first log in (since there's no enemy controlled AI), then in a couple of hours you should be fine. As I said multiple times, sure the UI can be improved and a tutorial would be appreciated. But we are no green gamers, this is a shooter. Get in, hunker down, shoot things, follow people. Really not that hard at all.

[Bzalthek]

It's really not that bad.  It's confusing at first identifying bad guys but overall even if you die it's only a 10 second spawn.  Though if you can't handle a little frustration probably best not to play. 

[Nightblade]

Played this game for 2 hours trying to find something redeeming about it. Didn't necessarily DO poorly but didn't find much enjoyment amongst the vague objectives. When I did something well, I didn't feel any thing. When I failed, I didn't learn anything. Taking a quick peek at the cash shop also killed any little motivation I had to play this game.

At it's base, it plays a lot like battlefield 3, so much so that I wondered why I wasn't just playing that instead.

[Tale]

Played this game for 2 hours trying to find something redeeming about it. Didn't necessarily DO poorly but didn't find much enjoyment amongst the vague objectives.

It may be a MMOFPS not a MMORPG, but "I played for two hours and here is my opinion" is not helpful for a complex MMO. I am still learning things about this game.

[Nightblade]

Played this game for 2 hours trying to find something redeeming about it. Didn't necessarily DO poorly but didn't find much enjoyment amongst the vague objectives.

It may be a MMOFPS not a MMORPG, but "I played for two hours and here is my opinion" is not helpful for a complex MMO. I am still learning things about this game.

Maybe If I played for five hours and took the mandatory introductory online course work I'd have a more favorable opinion... ... Or not.

Truthfully, the cash shop and the rate in which you earn certs is enough to turn me off, the garbage shooting and the randomly (apparently server side) disappearing textures is a whole different story.

[Falconeer]

Just want to remind some people why we (those who are) are playing Planetside 2 and not any Battlefied (which we probably played anyway):

- Scale.

Massive war vs. 64 players skirmish.

This does not mean you have to care or feel the same way. But this is why PS2 can't be compared to anything other than Planetside 1. Sure, you shoot weapons like in Battlefield and can drive vehicles, but that's it. The scale of the fight makes all the difference in the world and the fact that it's three-way and takes place in maps that feel infinite and devoid of walls is just awesome. If we agree that WWII Online is a simulator more than a FPS, then it's obvious that Planetside 1 and 2 offer something that cannot be found in any other game. And I'd say this is why people are playing it.

About the "garbage shooting", care to elaborate? I am curious.

[Nightblade]

At it's base, it plays a lot like battlefield 3, so much so that I wondered why I wasn't just playing that instead.

I'm aware of the scale, thank you. My gripes are with the mechanics, UI, new player experience and the cash shop. I don't know how I can be more straight forward than this.

Earlier in this thread someone equated the "shooting a water gun", and I agree with this.

[Falconeer]

Earlier in this thread someone equated the "shooting a water gun", and I agree with this.

I see, you picked Vanu.
Also, the cash shop argument is bullshit. You play the game because it's fun to play the game, not to unlock stuff. And you don't play it if it's not fun, not because you don't unlock stuff. There's no purple loot to be had here, cash shop or not.

[Nightblade]

Earlier in this thread someone equated the "shooting a water gun", and I agree with this.

I see, you picked Vanu.
Also, the cash shop argument is bullshit. You play the game because it's fun to play the game, not to unlock stuff. And you don't play it if it's not fun, not because you don't unlock stuff. There's no purple loot to be had here, cash shop or not.

I'm not the type of player who stops playing a game because he ran out of unlocks. I played TF2 for over 1000 hours before I became bored of it (when they started adding a ton of new weapons / items)

Playing for an hour and having a tiny fist full of free currency does not make me feel good about supporting these guys, but even pushing that aside and just looking at the game itself: even buying into the whole "side grade" schtick. Options = Power.

[Miasma]

It's a free game, only a six gig download, no good reason not to try it for a couple hours if you have ever enjoyed an fps type game.  Just be sure to respawn somewhere in the action and maybe join a squad that advertises itself as doing something.  If you want to fly aircraft then just spawn at the warpgate.

[Surlyboi]

Earlier in this thread someone equated the "shooting a water gun", and I agree with this.

I see, you picked Vanu.
Also, the cash shop argument is bullshit. You play the game because it's fun to play the game, not to unlock stuff. And you don't play it if it's not fun, not because you don't unlock stuff. There's no purple loot to be had here, cash shop or not.

I'm not the type of player who stops playing a game because he ran out of unlocks. I played TF2 for over 1000 hours before I became bored of it (when they started adding a ton of new weapons / items)

Playing for an hour and having a tiny fist full of free currency does not make me feel good about supporting these guys, but even pushing that aside and just looking at the game itself: even buying into the whole "side grade" schtick. Options = Power. "OMG, it's pay to pwn and I'm not down with that"

Fixed that for ya.

Side grades don't mean shit. All the power comes from shit you improve on in the game. You can buy a cash shop weapon and it won't mean shit compared to someone with standard gear that he's upgraded through playing and unlocking certs.

[Paelos]

I'll download and give it a whirl this Sunday. Thanks for the advice.

[Nightblade]

Side grades don't mean shit. All the power comes from shit you improve on in the game. You can buy a cash shop weapon and it won't mean shit compared to someone with standard gear that he's upgraded through playing and unlocking certs.

How much is the guided missile launcher again?

[Kageru]

Most of the useful weapons are 1000 station points, and close to that in certs.

About the "garbage shooting", care to elaborate? I am curious.

Wildly aggressive cones of fire, bullet drop and recoil mechanics (especially for NC), latency on actions (entering a vehicle being very noticeable), regular 1+ second server lag spikes when the action gets heavy, excessive ground shake on all sorts of things that don't deserve it, reports of hacking with no anti-cheat built in, ghastly grenade mechanics, over-powered AoE's (including grenades) and vehicle dominance getting in the way of good-fights, cluttered but characterless maps that are so samey, dreadful mini-map.

It's still fun, but lots of shooters do this better.

So for someone that has never played PS before, can you jump into this and "get it" without a whole shitload of background reading offline? I define shitload as more than 2 hours of reading just so I can start playing the game without getting my head blown off upon spawn.

.

You'll die the first time, respawn or re-deploy back at the warpgate so you can play with weapons, keybinding, driving. The flight model is bizarre but a lot of people are really good with it. Then when you get bored look for a battle marker on the map and deploy to it. With any luck there'll be lots of people to shoot. The base capture mechanics are the complicated bit but you can take your time to work those out. NC is probably the hardest start.

[Sky]

You will die 30 times before scoring a kill or understanding what is going on.

Bull-o-shit. I'm a crappy fps player and I've been able to hover around 0.5 since right off the bat. I'm probably worse now that I know more and I'm intent on trying to do things other than just shoot motherfuckers in the face.

Had one of my favorite moments. Fiancee watching, as we're putting Charlie through his paces. Jump into a gal adverting a hot drop. Full up, takes us to some cool plateau base and force ejects everyone....about twenty meters too soon. We all end up at the cliff base. No idea how to get up, picked apart by snipers. Laughed my ass off, but I was 0-1 today :)

[Cadaverine]

I'm absolutely terrible at FPS games, and I've got a K/D ratio of around .09 to prove it, but I'm still having fun.  Figuring out that 'B' switched firing modes has helped immensely.

After the last few nights, though, I'm thinking I should swap playing Engineer for Medic.  The amount of people that just waltz right in to gun fire is nothing short of amazing.

[Surlyboi]

Side grades don't mean shit. All the power comes from shit you improve on in the game. You can buy a cash shop weapon and it won't mean shit compared to someone with standard gear that he's upgraded through playing and unlocking certs.

How much is the guided missile launcher again?

And how useful is a guided missile for fighting infantry?

Yeah, thought so.

[rattran]

I find as NC engineer, the best strategy is to unload an entire clip into the bad guys neck, and hope they die. Works reasonably well. I haven't really developed more strategy than that.

[Kageru]

I swapped medic for engineer. Unless you run in an organized squad most of the time you'll be fighting in or around a spawn point, and when you lose the spawn point you lost the battle. Keeping the sunderer healed and any vehicles up (since those can't be re-spawned from mobile points) is more useful that saving someone a short run back. And that's before considering providing ammo, vehicle mines and healing MAX suits. Plus healing beams, on someone who just died, combined with staying in one place is just asking for a grenade.

That and heavy, because I hate vehicles. But people seem to consider the lock on launchers really limited. You can't reliably kill air with the one and the ground one gives lots of evasion time. And isn't needed if they are in your face which is what I care about. The default NC HA weapon is widely regarded as tragic though, so used station cash to upgrade out of that.

[Jimbo]

I used my free station cash to buy a shot gun.  It is horrible.  But the standard Engineer Carbine with no upgrades and I'm up to a bronze medal with it.  Hit crouch by either using Ctrl or C (c makes you stay in crouch), switched to having my right click of mouse hold my weapon in zoom, and slow down, aim center of mass, and short controlled burst.  That is with the standard engineer weapon.

Now some of the goofy stuff, like you will unload a whole clip into someone, they will turn around and double tap you and you are dead.  Then it shows that they only lost like 1 or 2 bars or shield on them.  This is happening with some Vanu were it sucked that they would wipe like 6 of us out at close range w/o them taking damage.  Bullshit like that, along with some aimbots that have crept in, will make it pretty shitty to play.  Has only happened a couple of times so far though.

Btw, if you really want to fix up a rifle, pick one, and join a squad and get 30 cert's, it won't take that long if you heal, shoot, capture, repair, etc..., then see which role you like and decide on a weapon and get a scope for it. 

[Falconeer]

Since we are giving away some advices for newbs once again, I'll repeat the two most basic ones that I can think of.

- (If you are not a sniper) Invest your first 30 certs into a better sight. 1x or 2x but get rid of the iron sight, it's really hard as a newbie to hit much with it.
- Don't ever shoot from the hip unless your enemy is so close that he/she is obscuring half of your field of vision. Always use the right mouse button and aim. This is weird if you grew up with 90s FPS, but kind of mandatory these days.
- Cone of fire is pretty large on almost all weapons, and gets larger until you spend certs in your weapon with every hit. Short bursts, very short bursts, always short bursts.

[Nebu]

This is out?

Yes.  Just don't say anything negative or these guys will call you a heretic.

[Nightblade]

Side grades don't mean shit. All the power comes from shit you improve on in the game. You can buy a cash shop weapon and it won't mean shit compared to someone with standard gear that he's upgraded through playing and unlocking certs.

How much is the guided missile launcher again?

And how useful is a guided missile for fighting infantry?

Yeah, thought so.

Missing the point entirely.

I used my free station cash to buy a shot gun.  It is horrible.  But the standard Engineer Carbine with no upgrades and I'm up to a bronze medal with it.  Hit crouch by either using Ctrl or C (c makes you stay in crouch), switched to having my right click of mouse hold my weapon in zoom, and slow down, aim center of mass, and short controlled burst.  That is with the standard engineer weapon.

You can trial weapons for 30 minutes before you buy them. Don't ask me what (arcane?) ritual you need to do this though.

[Mrbloodworth]

The arcane one where you click "Trial" after looking at the item?