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Already losing interest after about a week of casual play
Neanderthal
Member RarePosts: 1,861
It seemed like this game should be a lot of fun and I'll give SOE credit for letting people get a good taste of it without spending any money at all but, as indicated in the title, I'm burning out in record time.
I still don't know all of the ins and outs of the game so maybe I'm missing something. I'm sure someone will let me know if I am.
The number one problem I've been having with the game is that I have trouble finding enemies. The most important thing for a shooter game is to have people to shoot at, right? Well---where the heck are they? I'm not exagerating when I say that I spend 99% of my time in the game just running around or driving around or flying around looking for enemies. I do find some but the ratio of time spent "looking" versus time spent "fighting" is very poor.
With aircraft it's easiest to find other aircraft but I have yet to kill a single enemy aircraft so it's hard to get excited about that. It doesn't seem to matter how long I pound the other guy with my guns I can't kill anyone. But then someone gets me in his sights and I last about 2 seconds then boom. I understand that this is because other people have upgrades and I have none but it certainly doesn't encourage me to keep going.
With infantry, finding other infantry to fight is becoming so tedious I decided to come here and bitch rather than keep trying. I think the problem is that there are too many bases to capture and no real reason for opposing sides to concentrate in one area.
I mean, I look at the map and see an area which say "enemy squad detected" or whatever it says, something like that. So I go there thinking I'll find some action but when I get there it's a ghost town. So I wander on to the next base, nope, nobody here either. I can blast terminals or hack them if I'm playing an infiltrator or I can afk at a capture point untill I single handedly capture a base....but what fun is that crap? Sure it gets me experience but I'm afraid I really just don't care. Running from emptry base to empty base hacking terminals for experience is not very entertaining.
So is there some way to find out where a major fight is taking place? I'm fed up with blindly searching the map hoping to bump into an enemy. One day, after single-handedly captureing a base, I sat there watching the capture point for probably 15 minutes and finally, FINALLY...a lone enemy guy showed up to take the base back. I almost hated killing him, this fellow wanderer in the desolate world. But I did, I popped him a couple times with my sniper rifle (whatever the hell it's called) and killed him. Then I felt bad about it because I was alone again, so I logged out.
Comments
personally i found that PS2 is much funner in a squads.
Still i have no problem finding a fight, you just have to know where to go. most of the time you just have to look at the map for very obvious clues as to where the fight is (flashing sectors). the big green "deploy" icons, are also an almost assured fight. Other times you can sort of tell where people are going next by what sectors they just took.
as for getting killed so fast....i dont know man....i havent bought ANY upgrades and i'm still killing people left and right. You just have to know where people are going and what objectives they are trying to capture, you can then be ready for them and catch them unaware. It's also very important knowing where people will be spawning from etc.
Do keep in mind that each gun in this game has different stats so as a medic you will have a very hard time killing anyone since their guns suck ass. As a sniper you will only kill people once you have your heavy hitting sniper rifle. However take a heavy and you WILL kill people, especially medics, mechanics, even snipers.......
It does take a while learning all the ins and outs of this game and it is 10 times easier to learn while in a squad as most of the time you just have to ask.
i do agree with Tazlor that his game lacks.....not objectives.....but a definitive goal. the problem is that there is no....."orgasm" for lack of better words. It's all friction with no finish..... that feeling of accomplishment that you get with all other games when you "WIN", and the game/match/battle is over. The battle is never ending in PS2 so, even when you have conquered the whole map, what ever victory you achieved just get's washed away by the next wave of assault. I really don't kow how they could add that feeling of "finishing" without remoivng the "endless struggle" mechanics.
Haha, awesome.
I'm near Battlerank 30 on Soltech and I certianly seem to find more fellow wanderers though. I even play a majority of my time during off-hours like middle of the night through the morning time. As for that, I'd suggest looking for Sunderer's or use the instant action deploy. Take a flash or air vehicle and scout it out. You can also see the bar on the map if a base is actually being taken. Things like that. I don't know, I usually play with a friend though so that changes things.
Funny thing to me though is, this isn't a "matchmaking" FPS but it's an FPS where finding a "match" is the freedom of the game, the selling point. That's what is different. You find your squad, your teammates, your outfit, yo'r fight, your location to fight over. You're kind of given a large map, battleground, put on one of three teams and let loose. At the risk of me thinking to much into this or just sounding stupid, we're in a matchmaking mindset now though. Every MMO seems to need "matchmaking" to get in a group, to PvP, to do everything for them instead of relying on their own social skills. There is chat in PS2 but at least on my server, I hardly see anyone chat. Hell, I even yell to talk to enemies a lot of the of the time.
The reason I, personally, enjoy PS2 better is for this freedom. I can "match" up with just my friends, grab some vehicles, and go fight where we want to. Of course as you said, the most important thing in a shooter is still finding people to shoot at it. And if it is that dead on your server I'd suggest changing, maybe to a different timezone one as well. Or just sticking with matchmaking lobby based shooters. Where players have more equal footing, you can find people to shoot at more easily, and don't have to worry about being blown up out of nowhere by a LIberator.
Not sure if any of that was helpful or just me ranting, I need sleep....
All it takes to make a hex start blinking is one enemy touching a capture point/killing someone from what I can tell, so just because the area is blinking on the map or a deploy option is available, doesn't necessarily mean there's anything substantial going on there.
It's best first to check the populations on every continent, to get an idea of where everyones at. When you are checking hexes on the map, the biggest battles are going to be marked as "platoon/s in the area" or whatever. If you don't see anything marked larger than squad/enemies in the area, chances are their faction is focused on another continent.
If that isn't working out for you, it might be worth considering switching to a more populated server.
Agreed.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
I felt I should post an update. The instant action deployment options were the thing I was missing. Somehow I just hadn't caught onto that yet but now that I have it has helped a lot. I can't see myself getting into this game in a big way but it's something to mess around with when I'm bored.
Even though I'm finding more action now I still can't help thinking the game would have benefited from some more clearly defined objectives. But whatever, it's a ok game and I can mess around with it for free.
The game is a lot flash without much substance, the metagame is just missing for any long time motivation.
In simple FPS games your invested time or effort get rewarded with a team win, so games like BF3 and so on offer this. Some f2p games like world of tanks aswell.
In more complicated FPS or military sims you have gameplay modes which are actually similar to PS2. Take Arma2 for example, where you can conquer the whole game world, capture bunkers and stuff. At the end there is a winning team and you work for it.
In the older Battleground Europe mmofps, you can conquer a huge map with thousands of towns, bunkers, airfields or whatever. People did invest time and efforts sometimes for weeks to actually win the map.
In Planetside 2 all you have is a little bit character progession in form of certs and an ingame shop. You still invest time and effort with your or squad and faction, but at the end you capture something which took longer and only a short time later all of it is gone. You cant capture a map at all since the gates are protected. At the end there is no winning in this game.
The missing gameplay content that you actually can win with your faction, the missing metagame makes this game a short living expirience without much long term motivation. The game itself has good rudiments but the substance of gameplay is just weak. Its for sure fun for a while but wears off quickly.
Its actually a pitty that PS2 has less gameplay content than the predeccessor PS1.
Defending bases doesn't give anything so most squads/outfits just caps empty bases and then lets the enemy cap what they left behind and then recap later. So most groups will just fall back to another base when the base they're at is being attacked.
I stopped playing and uninstalled PS2 though, due to the liberator spam, it's just no fun and devs show no sign of willing to fix that because they made a post a few weeks ago saying AA is a deterrent to air so the counter to air is more air.
currently playing: DDO, AOC, WoT, P101
What is the instant action mechanic? Like a teleport to someplace where you're needed?
Planetside 1 didn't have that for the first few years so we had to wait 10 minutes for a transport bus to get to where we wanted, or just drive/fly there through warpgates which felt alot more like military strategy than instant action does.
Sounds like you're playing this solo. This game is not solo friendly. At all. AT ALL!
Just last night, I played with my friend (just the 2 of us), flying a Liberator as pilot / gunner. We didn't kill a single thing bar some stationary turrets (we suck hard), but had fun for 3 hours straight!
And this is just going from 1 player to 2. Imagine doing this with a guild. Or don't imagine, look at this short clip of an Outfit returning home from a victory:
http://youtu.be/QTzn93AzROo
That's what it's about.
Don't try to play this solo, find an outfit or just join a squad in-game and follow the leader's orders. Don't drive around looking for enemies to kill, lol. You misunderstood the premise completely.
EDIT: I see you figured it out with instant action. I guess solo play can be enjoyable as well
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
I have to agree with the OP for a variety of reasons. I too decided to give it a try, why not it's free right?
and it is fun, in very small doses...I think SOE made some really big goofs with the game sadly...
In no particular order, the things that bug me a lot and make it not something I'm going to be playing much:
No persistance really, the map flips like a coin constantly...it's just too easy for a zerg to sweep whole areas of the map...and no real reason for the other side to care because their zerg can be doing the same thing. You get more exp in an hour of mindless base zerging (from base captures) than in the same time fighting real battles.
Base defenses laid out by morons; multiple avenues of attack and cover/back doors is one thing...retarded kittens could design more effective layout than these monstrosities. Many of the bases really provide no benefit to the defender (or such a minor one as to be meaningless) and most spawn rooms are WAY too easy to camp. (Only 2 exits? really...with no cover? pluhleeze!)
"Hotdropping" under the treads of an enemy tank is funny the first time...not so much the 50th...The drop pods shouldn't spawn within 50m/100m of active enemies.
The collision detection is nice...until you watch some moron plow through your infantry with a tank and kill them all...or the jackass who backs over the engineers repping his tank...'crash' everyones favorite pilot who splats on liftoff into the gunship next to him etc.. Too many idiots, greifers and alts and not really enough to do about them.
Aside from that, it's a very pretty game..combat is pretty smooth until the numbers get high...I've seen the usual hacks (movement, clipping, auto shot etc) but I'm not tracking people enough to notice if SOE is doing anything about it...(I'd guess not though from the chat)
Ditto. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old fart, I am finding this with a lot of recent games, whilst they are visually stunning (GW2 etc), they lack any of the lasting depth or character of their predecessors. PS2 comes nowhere close to the immersion and dynamic beauty of PS1. I can't even imagine the kind of ongoing (fun) battles going on over single towers that used to playout regularly in PS1 happening in PS2 - it's just not designed for anything as involved as that, It's just bash bam, capture, move on, repeat. And the skill system has been dumbed down to hell, again, like a lot of recent games it's based on 'give players everyting up front and pigeon-hole roles so they don't have to think'. On the bright side, as long as the dated graphics aren't an issue, PS1 is going F2P soon and I reckon a ton of dissillusioned vets will be going back ;-)
I play on a pretty populated and popular server so finding enemies is not an issue, even on bases that appear to be empty:)
I also play with a nice size outfit where we have squads running most the time. Sometime the squads are small, other times they are full platoons, or multiple platoons over teamspeak.
I will also play solo. Most will say join an outfit do not play solo, but I disagree. I have found it very fun to use the voice chat and run around solo and have a lot of fun.
You may be on a low pop server. Understanding where enemies are coming and going will help you not only solo, but squads. You can hit P and find a public platoon also, so you will not be alone.
Overall there is just cap base zerg on. SOE is already working out 3 new maps and continent locks so capturing an entire map will have more reward.
Also one last note. Planet Side 2, like a lot of game, is a niche game. It is going to appeal to some and not others. So if your not enjoying it or after days of play cannot grasp the reason "why" to do anything, then chances are it is not for you.
S.C.I.F.I
<Sights, Clouded, In, False, Illusions>
Definitely join an outfit. I played solo for the first 30 hours or so just using instant action hot spot drops and then quit for a while cause I got bored. Joined a 2000 member outfit where there are ALWAYS people on to squad up with. It immediately got much more satisfying knowing you were working with many others to take a whole continent.
Knowing someone has your back while playing and working towards goals makes this game so much more interesting than running around hoping for enemies.
Yeah, sometimes you do nothing but ghost cap, but once you get a feel for what the other factions are doing and learn about things like adjacency and pre-capping you'll have a lot more fun.
Sure, it's fairly simple these days so close to launch, but what good online game doesn't improve over time? If you have an interest in it, take the time to visit some forums, read up on strategy, and join an outfit. If not, I'd say wait a couple months or so and come back and see how you feel.
www.daneslaw.com
@GamerKurisu
Awaiting Darkfall Unholy Wars
If you are looking for any depth in the game of Planetside - stay far away from this game. It is so shallow and so pointless - SOE added nothing to this game that would keep a person playing - at all.
Right now, after playing my share of PS2, I feel as though I am playing a game where each continent is like a game of BF2 or COD with the maps connected to one another. There is no substance to the game to actually measure your results. We take bases, and seconds later some guy on a Flash is back hacking what we just took. It is pointless to defend. So people just keep zerging to the next base.
So when is SOE going to add a system where conquering and holding territory is possible and is important that the faction not only conquer the land - but defend it as well? Where is the substance to keep people playing?
The game does not promote team play.
The game only promotes zerging.
The game does not support strategy.
The game only supports the zerg.
When will SOE add game play that has meaning to it? Or is all this game really is, is just what I describe, a continuous game of running COD and BF2 style maps?
It gets frustrating when for two or three hours you slog your way through a continent, only to see all the effort wiped out in a few minutes simply because their are a couple of people riding around on Flashes re-capping what you just took.
I am working on my review of this game as I write this and I know people will not like what I have to say about Planetside - it's cool - if you like playing a game that is shallower than any game ever put on the market - good for you.
SOE has said that PS2 is a FPS first and an MMO second. That being said the game turns into repeatitive FPS action. While zerging is the most effective way to take continents, PS2 is far from just zergs. I and my outfit have ran in just a squad of 12 and held off platoons with strategy and quick thinking....however we have been blown over by platoons as well.
PS2 is what you make it out to be in your own mind. Yes it can be grindy with certs. Yes it can be very repeatitive. Yes it can be just like a COD on a large scale map, but the game can also be much more with teamwork and logical thinking.
SOE has built a CORE game. Most core games are basic, and do 1 or 2 things great. In PS2 case it is actually a very solid shooter. Bugs, hell ya they are there. I am confident that SOE will smooth most out. Jan 30th is a big update. Adding weapons, changing spawn rooms, adding a tunnel system in bases, and working out a HUGE bug and performance overhaul. It's been stated the dev team has been able to eliminate 60gigs worth of RAM data usage during playtime. THAT IS HUGE for low end systems.
S.C.I.F.I
<Sights, Clouded, In, False, Illusions>
Its a sandbox, your supposed to make your own story and fun.
I only played the game for a few hours and left. I think BF3 is light years better and still play it.
This game is the first $OE game I played since SWG in 2006. Since I refuse to pay any money to these people I find this game pointless. Unless you play 12 hours a day and grind like crazy or pay them money, you won't get very far.
After 7 days of playing, I made Lvl 15 since you can't get many kills as a free player unless you are shooting at another free player who has bought no gear in the store. All the rest who do have gear will farm you and the rest of the non paying playerbase to oblivion.
Yes its quick action and fun at times but unless you are willing to cough the dough don't bother you WILL be meat to be grinded.
You have been warned.
I've been playing fairly steadily since launch and I will say this: Unless you join an outfit prepare to feel like you're on the outside of all the action. This is because this game favors tactics and some planning. The zerg will only get you so far. As far as dumping money into the game? I just started a new character and since I am already pretty practiced with the way of things I am getting more kills than ever because the weaponry caters more to my style. I haven't put any money into him at all as opposed to dumping heaps into the one that is in my bigger outfit on another server.
Join platoons/squads or an outfit and follow the bloody waypoints. Pay attention and listen for orders. If you have a lack of things to do its because you aren't on the battlefield. The civil war wasn't happening simultaneously on every inch of American soil at once. There were specific battles that happened in points of interest at certain times. And yes there are many many large scale battles happening at once. If you aren't happy with the activity on your server go to Matherson or Connery.
Because I started this thread I guess I'll update my status again.
Since my last post I've completely lost interest and stopped playing it. I had some fun moments here and there but overall it just wasn't enough fun to motivate me to keep logging in.
A big part of the problem is that the starter guns are just too freakin weak. Probably this is partly due to the fact that more dedicated players are getting armor upgrades by this point either through earned certs or by paying.
Part of it is the generally pointless feeling of it all as others have mentioned.
And probably some other things but I guess I'm not going to bother with any more analysis. The bottom line is that I wasn't having much fun. I know SOE wants me to fork over some cash for upgrades but if I'm not having fun to begin with I'm not going to spend money on upgrades hoping that by doing so the game will suddenly become more fun.
Also, to those who advised joining a guild. I don't like joining guilds willy nilly. I will only join a guild if I already know I'm going to be staying with a game for a long time and even then I'm reluctant because I've had bad experiences with guilds. Anyway, the "fun" principle holds true here as well. If I'm not already having fun I won't join a guild in hopes that that will make it fun.
So that's it. I tried it and didn't like it enough to keep playing.