Planetside 2

[Mrbloodworth]

   Part 2

    When is beta?
    Beta will ready when we feel the game is ready for people to play and test in. There is no solid date at this time.

    What are you most excited about in Planetside 2?
    I am most excited about the world system and the territorial control system, for example being able to capture a ridge or a river bend. Also the engine is capable of things volumetric clouds where vehicles could fly in and hide in the clouds.

    Can you tell us if 3rd person will play a role in PlanetSide 2?
    There will only be a 3rd person view for certain air vehicles, infantry will not have a third person view at all. There may be things like cameras that an infiltrator can throw on a wall to monitor who is coming up the stairs or around a corner.

    Can we expect more varied base layouts?
    Currently we are coming up with a way on how interiors are going to work, we are working on predictability vs randomness and we are leaning towards more standard base layouts rather than random. But this time around combat will be less centralized on bases. There will not be specific purpose built facilities such as drop ship etc (ie you won't require a dropship center to build dropships)

    Are there any plans for a larger variety in towers?
    Right now there are two types of towers and we hope to have more variety in towers.

    Are there any plans for more in-depth character creation, like what was done from EQ to EQ2?
    There will not be a large variety of character creation due to the large scale of the game.

    Game Appearance - How will weapon-customization be implemented into the game?
    There will be weapon customization in the game. The customization will be very sensitive to player gaining to much power. An upgrade may allow you to unlock different variants that are less accurate but do more damage. There will be a 15% to 20% maximum difference between players who are new compared to experienced.

    Will base names remain similar in PlanetSide 2?
    Hope to use similar base names as well as continents, there was a new continent featured in the teaser trailer and we are currently working on Searhus.

    Will wreckage remain on the battlefield?
    Wreckage will stay around on the battlefield for a period of time, hopefully minutes but it is still up for balance.

    Are you currently planning to make an expansion pack or periodically add content?
    There will be large scale content releases rather than expansion packs in PlanetSide 2.

    What are your plans for the storyline? Will it be expanded upon?
    The PlanetSide 2 story is the re-imaging of PlanetSide, you are still in Auraxis and allot of the story from PlanetSide will be re-examined in PlanetSide 2

    Part 3

    Will there be more of a detailed hitbox in PlanetSide 2? For example will we see Headshots this time around?
    There will be headshots in the game as well as locational damage on Vehicles.

    Can the terrain be altered (destructable terrain)?
    At this stage of development this is still up in the air.

    Do we still have a sanctuary? Or is it replaced with something else?
    The sanctuaries and shuttle system do not exist in PlanetSide 2 since they slow down the gameplay. You will be able to spawn directly on squad mates based on skills, squad spawning can only happen outside since squad spawning actually drops a capsule from the sky. Additionally you will be able to spawn in Galaxies.

    What changes will we see in the command system in Planetside 2?
    There will be squad level command systems that allow tagging of targets as well as outfit based command. There will also be orbital strikes in the game, all of these abilities will be based on the skill system in the game.

    What kind of new features can we expect for Outfits?
    Later on down the road (likley not at release) we hope to provide a skin system to allow outfits to customize their armors so the will be more recognizable on the battlefield. This type of system would be approved by the PlanetSide Team to cut down on inappropriate submissions.

    Will there be a merit system?
    Yes we hope to have a merit system in PlanetSide 2

   Will there be more of a detailed hitbox in PlanetSide 2? For example will we see Headshots this time around?
    There will be headshots in the game as well as locational damage on Vehicles.

And we are done here. This isn't Plantside.

[DLRiley]

Just shooting a projectile in the general direction of a moving object != an fps to 90% of people who play first person shooters and not mmos....

[Malakili]

Locational damage doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

[Surlyboi]

I'm totally fine with locational damage. Especially on vehicles. Disabling the main gun or the treads on a tank can be really viable strategies.

Relax, Bloodworth. They haven't fucked it up yet.

Not a lot of character variation is understandable, can we at least have some Brothers in Planetside 2? 

[01101010]

Do we still have a sanctuary? Or is it replaced with something else?
    The sanctuaries and shuttle system do not exist in PlanetSide 2 since they slow down the gameplay. You will be able to spawn directly on squad mates based on skills, squad spawning can only happen outside since squad spawning actually drops a capsule from the sky. Additionally you will be able to spawn in Galaxies.

No sanc? So... wtf are we fighting for then? And likewise, what if your faction gets wiped off all the maps? GG, Reroll please? Every army needs a home territory... one to launch full on offensives from...tank columns? air forces? Support columns?

This whole thing is starting to sound a lot like skirmish fights all taped together on a bigger map where shooting people is the primary goal and advancing your faction is secondary or even tertiary...

As for the headshot thing... As long as it takes two shots to kill someone still, I'm ok with it. If it's a one-shot one kill, BOOOOM HEADSHOT thing, well SOE can fuck right off. Then again... SOE can fuck right off anyway.

[Mrbloodworth]

Head shots. HEADSHOTS.

Locational damage is fine. They said head shots. Combined with a faster TTK. We have a battlefield wannabe. Who needs tactics, who needs team mates, who needs strategy, who needs objectives who needs combined arms, who needs support roles.

Boom head-shot is the only skill you need. He who turns the corner first wins.  

This whole thing is starting to sound a lot like skirmish fights all taped together on a bigger map where shooting people is the primary goal and advancing your faction is secondary or even tertiary...

Yep.

[Surlyboi]

Head shots. HEADSHOTS.

Locational damage is fine. They said head shots. Combined with a faster TTK. We have a battlefield wannabe. Who needs tactics, who needs team mates, who needs strategy, who needs objectives who needs combined arms, who needs support roles.

Boom head-shot is the only skill you need. He who turns the corner first wins.  

I'm still wait-and-see. Headshots can still be legit and strategy may not die at the hands of upped lethality.

[LK]

This whole thing is starting to sound a lot like skirmish fights all taped together on a bigger map where shooting people is the primary goal and advancing your faction is secondary or even tertiary...

How many people are going to buy this game to shoot the guy in the head, and how many are going to engage in complex macro warfare strategy tactics that presumes an obedient and competent force?

Come on, seriously. I love the idea of coordinating logistics and supply chains based on data and trends -- I'm an analyst at heart. That's why I'll pick up Anno 2104 or whatever. In an MMO environment a command structure places a server-wide hierarchy that all players may not be comfortable with but more than likely won't respect and just do their own thing.

[Mrbloodworth]

http://youtu.be/olm7xC-gBMY

[01101010]

How many people are going to buy this game to shoot the guy in the head, and how many are going to engage in complex macro warfare strategy tactics that presumes an obedient and competent force?

Come on, seriously. I love the idea of coordinating logistics and supply chains based on data and trends -- I'm an analyst at heart. That's why I'll pick up Anno 2104 or whatever. In an MMO environment a command structure places a server-wide hierarchy that all players may not be comfortable with but more than likely won't respect and just do their own thing.

So then why even attempt to make PS2 in this COD/BF environment and not do anything outside of that paradigm other than "oh but we have big maps that pack hundreds of players on a pointless map rather than a 128 or 64/32 player cap?" The whole god damn concept of PS was active warfare with control and dependencies and rambo was not a factor.

So they are in essence bringing out a Brink 2.0 with a map selection with large area and slightly different environment. Talk to me when PS2 comes out... till then I am done with this theorycrafting. Nothing they have said about the design has done anything but piss me off and disappoint me. About the only nugget I actually applaud is the no 3rd person cam in infantry mode. Otherwise...

I am through commenting on this thread.

[Sheepherder]

And we are done here. This isn't Plantside.

No, I guess not.

[eldaec]

I'm unclear how sand has found it's way into this thread's collective vagina.

All I can see is reference to a non-uniform hitbox and instead of a sanctuary you use a menu and go direct to droppod.

That doesn't seem earth shattering. What am I missing here?

[Ratman_tf]

Hopefully by headshot he meant location damage. I know I say stupid shit when I meant something else all the time.  

But there's enough stinky on these Q&As to make me go

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm unclear how sand has found it's way into this thread's collective vagina.

All I can see is reference to a non-uniform hitbox and instead of a sanctuary you use a menu and go direct to droppod.

That doesn't seem earth shattering. What am I missing here?

The erosion of a war game with more layers than an onion, into a session based shooter where only one skill is needed. A game that supported may play-styles and skills, turned into a one shot pony.

[Speedy Cerviche]

I'm unclear how sand has found it's way into this thread's collective vagina.

All I can see is reference to a non-uniform hitbox and instead of a sanctuary you use a menu and go direct to droppod.

That doesn't seem earth shattering. What am I missing here?

A few PS1 fanboys who don't seem to know much about FPS games in general getting their panties in a knot because SOE is trying to fix the quirky and flawed game that only they and a few hundred other people really liked.

SOE is taking another shot at all the FPS players who passed on PS1 because it was such a crummy FPS from a mechanics/design point of view. That means adding in modern & popular FPS design elements to make it competitive with BF/TF2/CS/CoD (But NOT necessarily a cheap clone), along with MMO elements to set it apart from those games and justify ongoing payments (massive scale, persistence, economy, achievment, etc.).

[Malakili]

I'm unclear how sand has found it's way into this thread's collective vagina.

All I can see is reference to a non-uniform hitbox and instead of a sanctuary you use a menu and go direct to droppod.

That doesn't seem earth shattering. What am I missing here?

The erosion of a war game with more layers than an onion, into a session based shooter where only one skill is needed. A game that supported may play-styles and skills, turned into a one shot pony.

Overreaction.

[Mrbloodworth]

Overreaction.

Perhaps. I'm still holding out that he did not mean one shot head shots.

A few PS1 fanboys who don't seem to know much about FPS games in general

Sure guy.

[HaemishM]

Why the fuck would the inclusion of headshots and locational damage on vehicles turn you OFF of a game? Fuck's sake, that and the lack of jumping is one of the things that really annoyed me about PS1.

[Malakili]

Why the fuck would the inclusion of headshots and locational damage on vehicles turn you OFF of a game? Fuck's sake, that and the lack of jumping is one of the things that really annoyed me about PS1.

Because he wants organization and planning to matter more than individual skill.   

[HaemishM]

It's hard to headshot an organization. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Why the fuck would the inclusion of headshots and locational damage on vehicles turn you OFF of a game? Fuck's sake, that and the lack of jumping is one of the things that really annoyed me about PS1.

No problem with locational damage on Vechicles. There was jumping in PS one. It's "head-shots" I take issue with.

[Malakili]

Why the fuck would the inclusion of headshots and locational damage on vehicles turn you OFF of a game? Fuck's sake, that and the lack of jumping is one of the things that really annoyed me about PS1.

No problem with locational damage on Vechicles. There was jumping in PS one. It's "head-shots" I take issue with.

If you have enough people that care so that organization and coordination matter, I think those players can be fucked to learn how to aim too.

[Sheepherder]

"Our game has headshots" is pretty unspecific in a game about future marines in power armour, given that a number of other games meeting that description don't have instant kill headshots.

[Mrbloodworth]

Why the fuck would the inclusion of headshots and locational damage on vehicles turn you OFF of a game? Fuck's sake, that and the lack of jumping is one of the things that really annoyed me about PS1.

No problem with locational damage on Vechicles. There was jumping in PS one. It's "head-shots" I take issue with.

If you have enough people that care so that organization and coordination matter, I think those players can be fucked to learn how to aim too.

I value sustained ability to aim over once. Part of the problem I am having is one shot deaths are annoying, not very fun, and remove firefights from games. They also really impact the need for support roles such as medical. One of the best parts about Plantsides design was the two shot rule for small arms. No one could die in one shot from small arms. This left lots of room for survivability, and sustain fights and created the need for support roles.Even opened up the game for those who are not really interested in shooting, but more casual roles ( Drivers, Engineers, pilots, cloakers ). It was not just simply who shot first. It was who was prepared, who has better sustained aim, who had better cover ability and situational awareness or tactics like flanking to remove the nested group.

Like I sad, I hope he just misspoke, if not, a huge chunk of what Plantside was about is gone. Increased damage from head shots is fine, as long as the two shot rule is there. But when you say "Head shots" you do not typically mean that.

It may very well attract more people to the game if head-shots are in, but I believe it does a disservice to the original design and lessons the overall war game.

[Malakili]

Why the fuck would the inclusion of headshots and locational damage on vehicles turn you OFF of a game? Fuck's sake, that and the lack of jumping is one of the things that really annoyed me about PS1.

No problem with locational damage on Vechicles. There was jumping in PS one. It's "head-shots" I take issue with.

If you have enough people that care so that organization and coordination matter, I think those players can be fucked to learn how to aim too.

I value sustained ability to aim over once. Part of the problem I am having is one shot deaths are annoying, not very fun, and remove firefights from games. They also really impact the need for support roles such as medical. One of the best parts about Plantsides design was the two shot rule for small arms. No one could die in one shot from small arms. This left lots of room for survivability, and sustain fights and created the need for support roles.Even opened up the game for those who are not really interested in shooting, but more casual roles ( Drivers, Engineers, pilots, cloakers ). It was not just simply who shot first. It was who was prepared, who has better sustained aim, who had better cover ability and situational awareness or tactics like flanking to remove the nested group.

Like I sad, I hope he just misspoke, if not, a huge chunk of what Plantside was about is gone. Increased damage from head shots is fine, as long as the two shot rule is there. But when you say "Head shots" you do not typically mean that.

It may very well attract more people to the game if head-shots are in, but I believe it does a disservice to the original design and lessons the overall war game.

Counter Point: WW2O - one shot from pretty much anything will kill you, save for limb shots which had other negative side effects.   It was hardly a death match game though, probably the slowest paced, combined arms, positioning matters, game I've ever played.  Just because you can die quickly doesn't mean the game turns into a CoD clone.

[HaemishM]

I value sustained ability to aim over once. Part of the problem I am having is one shot deaths are annoying, not very fun, and remove firefights from games.

This bolded part is patently untrue. There are one-shot headshot kills in Battlefield 2 and Bad Company 2 and I'll put my big time firefights in those game up against any in Planetside.

[Malakili]

I value sustained ability to aim over once. Part of the problem I am having is one shot deaths are annoying, not very fun, and remove firefights from games.

This bolded part is patently untrue. There are one-shot headshot kills in Battlefield 2 and Bad Company 2 and I'll put my big time firefights in those game up against any in Planetside.

Agreed, and this is actually  *because* they allow spawning on squad so that even though you die quick, you can reinforce relatively quick as well. Well, and medics.  But the point being, there is more than one way to make a firefight.

[Mrbloodworth]

Really, you and a group of people have held down a hallway for 15 minutes under fire until someone finally broke through another group on your flank only after positioning enough AMS's and securing the court yard?

Please record it next time.

Counter Point: WW2O - one shot from pretty much anything will kill you, save for limb shots which had other negative side effects.   It was hardly a death match game though, probably the slowest paced, combined arms, positioning matters, game I've ever played.  Just because you can die quickly doesn't mean the game turns into a CoD clone.

I have never seen nor played in a fight in WW2o that was not further than a football field. I do not believe the encounter ranges are comparable.


I tend to enjoy more arcade games personally. I have no need for realism. The pace of Plantside one was a great one, so the combination of speeding that up and allowing head-shots ( Sill in the air ) signals to me that the other parts of the design are getting sidelined. Considering Plantside is from the tribes line of design ( Not V2 BS )  like other games of this design, such as global agenda. Adding more session based game play elements to a war game strikes me as wrong, not when the original title valued teamwork and objectives more than one shot kills.

You guys may cite Battlefield and COD all you want, thats a different game design, and are not war games. I avoid them because I find them shallow.  The elements being added like classes, head shots, insta-respwns, and head shots really bother me for this title.

I'm with 01101010, I'm out until more concrete info is given.

[Malakili]

Really, you and a group of people have held down a hallway for 15 minutes under fire until someone finally broke through another group on your flank only after positioning enough AMS's and securing the court yard?

Please record it next time.

I fail to see how this change is going to stop stuff like from happening in game.   

[Mrbloodworth]

Really, you and a group of people have held down a hallway for 15 minutes under fire until someone finally broke through another group on your flank only after positioning enough AMS's and securing the court yard?

Please record it next time.

I fail to see how this change is going to stop stuff like from happening in game.   

Because it does not happen in the other titles.

[Lantyssa]

Relax, Bloodworth. They haven't fucked it up yet.

If we use Bloodworth as an indicator of what will make a good game, Planetside 2 will rock.  Let him think it's ruined.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm all for making the title more appealing and modernizing it, but there are some things that simply do not belong.

We shall see how it goes.

[Mrbloodworth]

On Saturday at Fan Faire 2011 after the major announcements were made we had a chance to sit down with John Smedley and pick his brain on PlanetSide 2 and what it means to him and SOE.

Q. Can you elaborate a little bit on the free aspect that has been mentioned?

A. There will be a cash shop for the game however the goal is not to sell power. For example we would sell things like customization because we would like there to be a massive amount of ways to customize your characters. So people could recognize you or your outfit out of a group. We will not sell a more powerful gun or vehicle.

Q. Tell us more about how you would like to involve the community in PlanetSide 2 Development, and post release.

A. We will have the three year development plan as well as being active on the forums. We want to keep constant discussion open with the community and we plan to do that by directly interacting with the community.

Q. How important is PlanetSide 2 for SOE?

A. It's important to us and it's one of our big tent poles. We feel strongly about PlanetSide 2 and have dedicated a lot of resources to it.

Q. What are you most excited about with PlanetSide 2?

A. I am most excited to be playing it, this is the game that I want to play. I switch games I play every night and this is the game I am looking forward to playing every night.

Q. What was the biggest lesson you learned from PlanetSide when it comes to building the sequel?

A. Number 1 would be to keep the pace faster, things like the sanctuaries have no place in the game and slowed things down too much. Also we need to support the communities deep love for PlanetSide throughout.

Q. What are your plans to keep players involved for the long term. How do skills and training play into that? What are your plans for "End Game" for hard core players.

A. We plan on announcing a 3 year post launch vision for the game to go into detail on this. We will take fan feedback and alter the plan and really listen to the community feedback.

Q. If you could play one Sony game for the rest of your life what would it be?

A. PlanetSide for sure.

Higby is posting on PSU.

If you're BR 10, that's on your character. Classes don't really have RANKS, they have CERTS which are locked or "gated" by the player's overall rank. So, if you're BR 10, you aren't automatically a level 10 AA Max since a level 10 AA max doesn't actually exist in a meaningful way. But, you have access to unlock level 10 AA Max CERTS, those CERTS would still require time to train and unlock.

So, while you can switch into a variety of roles, you'd be playing them completely untrained until you put some time into advancing all of them.

One final note: More advanced roles (Such as MAX or Liberator) may require advancement down a specific skill tree to unlock, for instance you may need to spend some time training Heavy Assault to unlock MAX skill trees, that way everyone can't just spawn an untrained powerful vehicle / weapon and still be very powerful with it despite not having any of the bells and whistles unlocked. This is something we're still playing with internally, we're doing a lot of iteration on these systems - when they're totally locked down you guys can expect to see a full expose on them get released.

Again, huge thank you for the questions and feedback guys... It's really awesome to have this community as a sounding board, sanity check and idea farm on some of these things.

There aren't animations for getting into or out of vehicles.

 

I agree the ps1 had a great system, we're definitely keeping the spirit of that system in ps2. What you won't have is a dude that looks like a medic rolling around with a rocket launcher, or a light assault dude with a jump jet who also can use a chaingun. We're offering a lot of cool, divergent gameplay styles that in a completely freeform style system would be way, way too easy to stack and exploit.

 

Squad spawning is really tricky to balance, no doubt. What we haven't talked about are things like the requirements to do it (needs a relatively advanced spec'd squad leader in your squad to use) and it will be on some kind of cooldown based on the squad leader. It's definitely not designed to be your primary respawn method.

We're definitely going to be making a huge push around Planetside 2, have no doubt.

Not so bad.

Inventory won't exist in the same way as it did in PS1. There will still be loadouts, but you won't have to manage inventory space to trade-off ammo for medkits, etc.

 

[HaemishM]

Really, you and a group of people have held down a hallway for 15 minutes under fire until someone finally broke through another group on your flank only after positioning enough AMS's and securing the court yard?

Please record it next time.

I fail to see how this change is going to stop stuff like from happening in game.   

Because it does not happen in the other titles.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. I've had multiple games in Battlefield 2142 with protracted hallway fights while trying to take over Titans. I've had matches lasting close to an hour fighting over a single objective over and over in both Battlefield 2 and Bad Company 2 (the trick being that the ticket counts were set higher than the default). Both games with headshots and spawn on squad mechanics, with large scale maps (though not as large as a PS1 continent, still decent sized maps the required a good few minutes to walk from one side to the other).

In fact, the Titan fights were very similar to tower fights in Planetside - bunch of guys outside trying to break through grenade spam.

[Abelian75]

I don't think MrBloodworth is completely talking out of his ass, even if maybe it's a little bit of an overreaction without knowing more.  I think his worry regarding headshots and decreased time to kill is that such things do tend to make for less stability in gameplay.  If you have a game with one-shot headshot kills, and a dude runs around a corner into two defenders, there is a much more realistic possibility of him winning that fight than if (on the other extreme) it takes thirty seconds of pumping rounds into someone in order to kill them.  In the second scenario, in fact, you're pretty nearly going to get the same result every time.  Longer time to kill and less "twitch" skill dependence are effectively running a simulation multiple times and averaging out the results.  While it's typical to say that games with a heavy emphasis on reaction time and quick battles are more "skill-based" (which makes some sense, since a very skilled player will often be able to defeat two opponents, whereas in the slow game they would almost never be able to using only "twitch" skill), another important effect of games in that style is that even complete newbies have a non-ignorable chance of winning that one-on-two fight.  So while a more "skill-based" game DOES increase the average victory rate of a skilled player, it ALSO increases the random spread of results.  Despite increasing the gap in average success rates between skilled and unskilled players, it also makes individual encounters much more unpredictable.

I think his worry is that without predictability, you are much less likely to have firefights like this, because a newbie charging around that corner actually has a non-ignorable (even if it is very low) chance of doing some damage.  And it's hard to get people to do things that involve cooperation and long-term focus if other methods can be effective (not necessarily as effective, of course).  I think it's a reasonable concern to wonder if the designers recognize this.  At one time I would have thought, "Duh, of course," but I don't know.

Now, someone else mentioned that spawning on your squad may have a balancing effect on this.  That does make some sense, I think.  Effectively it makes it so that the individual's death is actually fairly irrelevant, and more akin to getting your shields knocked out in Halo or something.  You're hurt, but if you can just chill for a few seconds, it's fine.  It means that while you can just blindly charge around the corner and maybe kill a dude or two if you're lucky, that won't really matter that much if there are three dudes.

So yeah, I'm maybe not quite as DOOM about this (though I am for other reasons, because I'm just cynical of whether there's any real love going into the game in the first place), but I do think there's some rational basis for not wanting headshots and quick time-to-kill.  Vehicle location-based damage makes a bit more sense, because it tends to be less about skill and twitch (it's pretty easy to aim at a big vehicle tire), and more about flanking and position.