[This post is very verbose so if you don't want to read all my OCD-fuelled scribbles just go to point 3, it's the most important anyway] Let me preface this post and discussion by saying that I am an avid Planetside 2 player and a veteran of Planetside 1 so a lot of the things I want to bring up here are based on the changes I saw take place with that series as it transitioned into the current gen. I've seen similar complaints voiced already by other gamers so I want to create a thread where we can analyze the mechanics of an MMO shooter and outline the do's and don'ts. As we all know, PS2 is a game that diverged from its predecessor quite significantly, in certain ways that many old fans were very upset with and ways that can be traced as the cause of a lot of the problems the game experiences these days. Here are some of the issues of PS2 and the mechanics that PS1 successfully used to combat these problems: 1. Zerging/the 4th (for EC, 5th) faction: In Planetside, the 4th faction is a term for players who switch teams based on where the wind of success blows. They are often blamed for draining the fun from the game because they exaggerate the effects of overpopulation and stack the faction that is already typically the most populated. In Planetside 1, these people could no really have any bearing on competition because you could not log into more than one character in a set length of time.Meaningful bonuses were given to the underpopulated factions. Zerging is something we all know of, and it is currently the one and only way of truly securing victory in Planetside. Overwhelming the enemy with numbers is the key to success. Miguel acknowledged this issue before, saying that players will be encouraged to spread themselves out on multiple fronts, but I am not convinced that this is enough. Ideally there need to be mechanics ingame that can deal with large groups of enemies (i.e. the artillery that's already planned to be in game should be able to deal with large clusters of enemies, thereby punishing people who gather into huge blobs. Other explosive weapons should also be available for this, but they should also not be spammable lest they supplant other weaponry as they did in Planetside 1 and what Planetside 2 was right to fix.) 2. Tanks/heavy vehicles: Any vehicles bigger than an ATV in PS2 are in an awkward situation that resulted from the developers attempting to balance them into the game with nowhere near enough limitation to their use. Tank zergs were a common issue at launch and, though they are much less common with the resource changes, they are still an occurrence. Players had access to tanks from the start and could pull them at any large base or facility. To add to this, tanks were designed to have the driver use the main gun while a gunner could control the secondary weapon. These tanks were cheap and much better a choice than going on foot. The result? Hundreds of players piling into tanks after any large battle at a major base. While these zergs were a majestic sight, they killed the fun for everyone. To this, SOE responded by providing infantry with new antitank options that could effectively kill tanks at extreme ranges while tanks themselves were made significantly less effective. Tanks immediately died out at they were made into nothing but moving coffins. Then they had their durability buffed a bit in hopes of keeping them viable and resource costs increased to make them somewhat less common. The result of all these changes: tanks exist in a functional state, but primarily have to prowl the outskirts of a battle and act as artillery support or fight one another lest they gain the ire of infantry players. This is not a good way to have tanks/ vehicles. Planetside one had better mechanics to this end that forced players to specialize in tank usage to be able to pull tanks and bring along friends to crew their main guns. On the upside, they were powerful and very useful for breaking an enemy defense. This is the good way to have tanks. This problem is not likely to exist as I've seen evidence of the dev team taking note of these systems and acknowledging them in past interviews. Still, this is important stuff and worthy of being remembered. 3. Base siege and supplies: This is quite possibly the most important thing I want to bring up because it feeds into both the other points and is one of the things I feel to be absolutely mandatory in such a game. Planetside 2 took many of its systems from battlefield where engineers drop ammo, medics heal etc and forgot one of the most important lessons of Planetside 1 in the process. In PS1 players had vehicle trunks in which they transported ammo and medicine as well as alternate weapons and kit to the battle. Meanwhile, bases had NTU silos (resource storage that players had to refill by driving ANTs (essentially delivery trucks) of nanites (resources) from the main base) which supplied all the systems of a base and when depleted made the base shut down and leave the defenders without resupplying or revives. This meant that players had to resupply extended assaults with medicine and ammo to keep fighting and bases had to break long sieges to keep from being starved to death. All this made zergs much more difficult to form, and required coordination from both attackers and defenders crucial while giving smaller groups new targets to launch guerrilla strikes on in the form of aforementioned ANTS/ vehicles full of ammo and equipment. Suddenly small tactical groups could be a decisive factor in battle, and large armies of players could be rendered useless by a cut supply line. Zergs could no longer afford to be mindless and defenders could not hold positions indefinitely thanks to the advantage of fortifications. One of the proudest moments of my outfit in PS1 was when we held a facility from a large force without reinforcement for many hours and our resources were depleted so we were left with whatever novelty weapons and mementos we had left in our personal lockers. We could no longer heal or revive fallen players and all our ammo came in the form of scavenged New Conglomerate weaponry. We stalked the hallways of the facility with knives and ambushed enemies, killing them in cold blood so we could grab their guns, our numbers constantly falling as more and more comrades went down. Eventually reinforcements arrived long after they were due, while we still fought the enemy that significantly outnumbered us by then. Yet we held the fucking line. We were victorious that day, the NC was driven back. Best moment in our Planetside career. Meanwhile in PS2 zerging is easy because resources are infinite and the only thing that is really a limiting factor are AMS mobile spawn points (which are still cheap and readily available, you just have to drive them to the fight.) Defenses are no better, with defensible bases being impregnable with enough defenders and turning into said defenders simply farming kills. I remember one player from the Briggs server posting screenshots of a Biolab defense where his faction farmed kills against both others for an entire week. Other bases often have to be designed specifically to give the defenders a disadvantage just to avoid such situations. If any developer sees this thread, I would love you forever if you respond to it and consider if such mechanics have merit in the context of EC. For my fellow players, please share your experiences of MMO PVP systems for similar mechanics Behavior should look our for or consider in your opinion and feel free to give your take on the above.
Hey Unbihexium, thanks for the tips! We were just discussing a number of these issues in a meeting this afternoon, so they're definitely on our minds. It's great to see what you have in mind as well, so let us know if you have any more thoughts on MMO/Shooters!
TL;DR - Limit special unit spam and make resources finite. I agree with the sentiments. I too played PS2 and felt it was too much of a persistant BF2. Aircraft were terribly overpowered and not even dedicated AA units were much use against them. One of my pet peeves is that you're the driver and main gunner of a tank. Why? You can only shoot forward and now there is less reason to work with other players. Tanks should require another player to fire the main gun/coax and a 3rd player for the pintle. However, some caution I urge when deciding on how to give out top tier units - keep in mind that some factions rely on them as part of their fighting force and history. The apogee of a Dark Angel, for example, is TDA or a bike. If I'm going to aim towards being a member of the Deathwing, I don't like the idea that I might only get to use terminator armor once, no matter how hard I work. Same with bikes. As a player, I have the 1st company and a good portion of the 2nd company, and I play them regularly. In the table top, this is balanced by my relatively few models that fill very specialized roles. Having bikes and TDA is as integral to building a Dark Angel strike force, just as jump packs are to Blood Angels or Grim Reapers to Biel-Tan. It's okay to lock players into their choice on a server so they can't faction jump, and to make it very difficult to make it into the 1st company for Dark Angels, but TDA should then be readily accessible, more so than other chapters. Terminator armor makes up more than 10% of the entire DA chapter, and bikes another 10%+. I'd wager you have a 25% chance to encounter one or the other enmasse. One way to moderate this is to lock players who hit a high enough bracket to take bikes and terminator armor for x amount of time. For example, they select the option to equip terminator armor. Congrats, they now can't remove this armor for 7 days. After which they can elect to wear it again or switch to something else. This prevents people from mobbing a particular piece of wargear, and can reduce the impact if it's unbalanced while you work on a fix - those who are on bikes or jump packs can't immediately switch to it. The ultimate goal is to allow deathwing and ravenwing type units to be viable in game without making the game a big terminator vs terminator vs meganob bore fest.
I like that idea. force players to play a specific role in the war machine. It always helps to understand your specialty
Force them is a strong term. But definitely force them to make good choices. There should always be consequences. For example, I finally get my TDA (huzzah!). But, now I can't ride in a rhino, drive any vehicles, or use grenades. My weapon selection is now relegated to storm bolters, power swords, power fists, lightening claws, etc. Further more, I depend on power armored marines to get around. I can embark on a land raider, but I can't drive it. So a squad of 5 terminators would have to lumber VEEEERRRRRYYYYYY slowly towards the battlefield, or ask 5 power armor marines to drive their land raider (one driver, and one marine for each weapon). Thus we approach balance - I'm powerful, but only if the logistics exist to get me into battle.
Learn the lessons from WAR. Simply putting your all into ensuring that the game is balanced upon release isn't enough. It is imperative that you listen to player feedback after the games release, and during and after any significant patch, to see how real-world balance is affected. I promise not to rant too terribly, but it's simply something that has plagued my mind ever since I read the news that the WAR servers were finally seeing their last good night. When WAR was released years ago, I (and many likeminded Warhammer fans) purchased it with the intention of abandoning a certain other fantasy realm and enjoying the benefits had therein in a setting more to my liking. At first, it actually was pretty good. Players were plentiful, and the classes were fairly decently balanced. Then it happened. Months went by, and a few patches came in here and there. Certain classes became undeniably more powerful than others. Certain classes could solo entire groups of evenly geared players. And the team didn't listen. They chalked up everything to 'whiners' and 'nerf-hawks'. Little did they realize that their subscriber base was dwindling with every poorly thought out patch. Lo and behold, not five years after the doors opened, it was dead. I have assumed developers have been 'smart enough to know' in the past and have been cruelly disabused of that. Please, BE, for your own sake. Listen to us.
Ahh MMO shooters....Fell in love with the whole concept since the late 90s. I'll be damned if they still haven't be done correctly lol. Still for ME the closest to a perfected MMO shooter was WorldWar II Online. had reason to fight, and hold territory. and Had real consequences for losing. Yet they were not so harsh as to keep you from playing.
On the idea of specialization, I would recommend 1. A system like PS1 where players could earn a limited number of skills throughout their career, but skills could be unlearned and points could then be allocated to another specialization once every few days/weeks. This meant specialization just as strict as having your role set in stone, but as time went on you could respec every now and again, eventually changing your role. This is also nice for making each soldier feel valuable because their job isn't easily replaceable. On the other hand, as it was in PS1 there was a significant outcry for the lessening of restrictions which caused the system to be mostly invalidated as players were allowed to gain more certification points over the course of working towards an increased level cap, so there are likely people who don't like such limitations. 2.A system where you can eventually potentially do anything if you invest enough time, but there are external factors strict enough that you are still essentially roped into certain roles (i.e. you can get terminator honors eventually, but you can't get more than one terminator suit in a LONG time, so you go full terminator for a while, but as soon as you get killed/ executed you are locked out of this role for a noticeable timeout). Admittedly this second approach has the problem of yielding great amounts of frustration (little Timmy finally puts on his shiny tactical dreadnought suit, and suddenly a nightwing flies in from out of nowhere and gibs him with brightlances.), and may affect player mentalities (I took months to get this termie suit, no way am I risking it in this fight). At the same time though, this system is more pleasant in the eyes of man gamers because they don't feel that doors are closed to them. Thoughts? Are there better examples I missed?
Honestly I really hope Behavior is not intending to mimic PS2 other than massive scale. The more they can keep it to the IP the better. However this raises an interesting concern for me which is how factions will be balanced. Is not a standard Space Marine, better equipped and flat out better in almost every way than a standard Ork can ever achieve just on the basis of lore? I mean will we really just be playing PS2 with different skinned characters/weapons/vehicles that don't give proper homage the battle efficacy of the race?
