When anyone mention Massive Multiplayer and NOT an RPG it is inevitable that Planetside 2 will come in a discussion. Eternal Crusade will be compared to PS2 on a constant basis due to its nature. So, instead of spawning threads like "We are totally not like PS2!!!" I would like to see what harmed PS2 the most to avoid it in EC because we have the advantage of being being early in production. 1. Infantry. One of the surest way to die in Planetside 2 is to get in a vehicle. Average life expectancy of a tank is way shorter than life expectancy of a common footslogger. Mostly due to a lot of anti-vehicle options. So one of the most common jokes about the game is that Sony should rename it as Infantryside 2. the problem is three-sided - abdurance of anti-vehicle options, dual time and resource limit on aquiring vehicles and overall hard learning curve of vehicle driving and targeting. 2. Visual Appearance. One of the problems new players have to deal with is how all three factions resemble each other visually. With different camouflage your own soldier could looks exactly like enemy and vice versa. the only difference would be red marking above them. With CSM and SM that could be an issue as well - their armor, if not stuffed with decal spikes, horns, seals etc, could be identical, because, well, it is according to lore. Team Fortress 2 devs stated that they spent a lot of time designing each class so even in the dark or dim vision players could recognize each class instantly. In Planetside 2 you can say which class it is mostly by weapon(rocket launcher=>heavy). 3. Bane of Amerish Amerish is the most unpopular continent in PS2. Reason - its big. Sony implemented "strings" that link each control zone in other two continents so people should capture certain zones to progress further. In Amerish there is no such "strings" and everyone could capture border regions. Result - average batte on Amerish is rarely progresses further than 20 vs 20 at best, while on other continents 100+ vs 100+ is a common thing. 4. Grinding The process of grinding certs(PS2 currency) is mercyless one. You earn 1 cert per 250 exp points, 1 kill is 125 exp. Best weapons(mostly) cost 1000 certs. there are bonuses if you ar efighting outnumbered but they rarely exceed +20% exp at best. 5. Equal equipment for all faction and low diversity Every faction have the same equipment but with minor changes - Terran Republics have more bullet-per-second, vanu sovereignty have lasers insted of bullets, land mines arethe same. So it's mostly playing with different skin.
Seems to be a lot of Planetside 2/ex-Planetside 2 players coming out of the wood works to express what they have found to be good and bad points of the game. It'll be interesting to see some alpha footage of Eternal Crusade to see what, exactly, we're dealing with.
I can but agree with you. I left PS2 because he gameplay does not change from BR1 to 75 and I care not to play it further. And many mistakes Such as 1. Let there be balance! but not equality. SOE made all the weapons minor sidegrades of each other with but a couple guns that have different mechanics. Hopefully the mistake won't be made here. Of cource, Bolters are equally badаss in CSM and SM variation, but hell, there are so many patterns! And chaos variants can come with really mind-wracking bonuses and debuffs. A gun that can sometimes spit a spurt of plasma because you rolled a 6? Why not! A gun that eats your HP to regenerate ammo? Why not. 2. getting all the cookies from the start SOE had all the guns, no matter the cost, being roughly equal in power, only a couple (sometimes the cheap and default ones) being a bit more useful, because they had good bonuses combos. The dude that just logged it needs to see high-end content to have some motivation! No, I'm not implying GOLDEN BOOLTEERS. I'm implying getting your Power armour in basic, simple variant. And then getting lots and lots of cookies. Body Augmentation, armour upgrades, ammo variations, unlockable capabilities (that require you to fulfill a badаssness challenge, not grinding) like Dire avenger Bladestorm. Double the dakka, double the fun! 3. no-brainer weapons Also known as "blast weapons" That require you not to aim at times. Just saturate the area with AoE and feel yourself teh king of teh battlefield? Now way. AoE weapons should be just as unpredicatble as they are in tabletop. They can just fly to the side and blow up there, not harming anyone. So, I see your point.
1. I would disagree, if you moved in an armour column with supporting infantry there wasn't much that could stop you. Sure if you went solo without any support you were micemeat and if you were fighting in an urban environment then obviously that's going to be a battleground that is unsuited to the use of heavy armour. 2. This shouldn't be an issue considering the Space Marine doctrine of "I'm walking cover so I don't really NEED to wear camouflage. Each chapters is easily distinguishable, the Ork clans and Chaos Space Marines as well. Eldar not so much but again it doesn't really matter since there are different races, you'll EASILY be able to tell apart an Ork from a Space Marine. 3. I'll agree Amerish is a poorly designed piece of garbage. 4. Also agreed to a point, Grinding in PS2 is tedious however there does need to be some kind of effort involved in getting your gear. Instant gratification and welfare gear should have no part in EC. I'm tired of casual shit in MMOs and a lot of people are too. It SHOULD take a long time to get Power Weapons, Plasma Cannons, Storm Bolters otherwise progression does not exist. 5. You won't have anything to worry about on that front.
The world in ps2 feels very static to me, nothing changes, only the ebb and flow of zone control. Hopefully they can find a way to change this, a jungle area after days of fighting might just be blackened stumps, a shining city reduced to the charred bones of its former self, cool stuff like that.
Striker. Phoenix. Unless you blocked the spawn point vehicles are blowin left and right even with 3 engeneers fixing them(in 48+ vs 48+ battles). Eldar and orks could be distingueshed due to body geometry, but CSM could be hard to distinguish from SM, unless they will have something like Word bearers icon horned helmets. Problem is not that it is hard to get better weapons, problem is that weapon is like 0.5 second faster reload speed, or does 55 damage instead of 50 at 100 meters. The difference is negligable with vast majority of weapons.
1. Eh, I never really had a problem with them in all honesty. Though I never brought armor close enough to bases for the Anti Tank stuff to be effectively used. 2. The legion colours won't really clash too much with the Chapters and they'll have some pretty clear iconography that will help differentiate (I think). 3. That's a fair point.
Indar death canyon Indar continent have one canyon that is the only way for vehicles and surrounded by mountains. Every vehicle advance along that pass fails in 80% of assaults. Because the mountains instantly became swarmed by anti-vehicle troopers and each tank careless enough to advance past force shield is onliterated in seconds by dozens of missiles. And infantry advances usually fail due to numerous snipers.
