PlanetSide 2 completely botches the EU release

[bastardofmelbourne]

When the game launched, the AU servers weren't even working. I mean they were nonfunctional; you could barely connect to them for three days after launch, and if you did you'd just get booted after a fifteen minutes.

To be fair to SOE, the problem was on the provider's end - Telstra is a notoriously shitty ISP for overseas companies to deal with, and Veratu (the SOE rep on the forums) was pretty open about the problem and how they were fixing it. Open and frank communication with the playerbase helps a lot more than most game companies seem to realise.

Hello everyone! American here to say, you are missing nothing! The game has an excellent concept and runs really well. But the "FREE TO PLAY" element ruins the game. The game by itself is amazing but to unlock weapons you need about 1000 credits which are earned at roughly the speed of grass growing. The only other option is too either play nonstop forever or pay real money. The people who do pay real money have a strange tendancy of destroying entire platoons in one hit. That for me ruined this game.

Man, I'm tired of explaining this. The cash unlocks are sidegrades. They give advantages in certain areas and disadvantages in others. It is the exact same F2P system used in TF2. If you lost to a guy with a cash unlock, it's because you were fighting on his turf, and I'd shit a goddamn brick if I ever saw one guy kill a platoon (~48 players!) without hacking.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude, Andrew, but it's a really persistent misconception that PS2 is pay-to-win. The devs have put a lot of thought into making it not pay-to-win, and people aren't giving them credit for that. If you ask me, what's really ruining the game is the persistent hacking - I can't go a day now without seeing a guy noclipping or aimbotting through a pitched battle and ruining it for everybody. SOE needs to come down hard on that shit.

 

[Sanzennin]

Thanks Bostur, your solution worked for me perfectly!

Man, I'm tired of explaining this. The cash unlocks are sidegrades. They give advantages in certain areas and disadvantages in others. It is the exact same F2P system used in TF2. If you lost to a guy with a cash unlock, it's because you were fighting on his turf, and I'd shit a goddamn brick if I ever saw one guy kill a platoon (~48 players!) without hacking.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude, Andrew, but it's a really persistent misconception that PS2 is pay-to-win. The devs have put a lot of thought into making it not pay-to-win, and people aren't giving them credit for that. If you ask me, what's really ruining the game is the persistent hacking - I can't go a day now without seeing a guy noclipping or aimbotting through a pitched battle and ruining it for everybody. SOE needs to come down hard on that shit.

I wouldn't call it a misconception. It takes a good amount of imagination and good will not to call PS2 pay-to-win. If you can pay real money to get items that directly affect the gameplay (that is, excluding costmetic stuff and boosters, except damage boosters / ect.) that is how I would define P2W. Lets take a look at PS2 cash shop: Majority of the stuff is weapons, offering wide variety of stat combinations. And lets face it, some stat combinations are whole lot better than others. (Call them sidegrades if you want, I'll just say that some sidegrades are better than other sidegrades)

Here is an example: I'm an infiltrator who started playing yesterday. An utter and total newbie one could say. I was looking at the infiltrator unlocks. 1000 certs per each? Yeah, right. It would seem that for me it is impossible to get 1000 certs, even though I can be rather patient. But there was a totally superb weapon there, the SMG. This weapon will make the infiltrator a close combat specialist, especially during night time. I bought it, tried it out, wiped a squad on the first run. (Sorry, haven't tried it against a platoon yet, but its most likely the same, just takes a bit longer)
It's just that suddenly everybody seems to be on "my turf". I can even sneak up on max, put a clip through his head and see how he is doing after that.

I only wish that the cloak would automatically go away when I press fire, rather than having to press the ability button and THEN fire. Doesn't make a huge difference if I have my gun on the back of your head already, but that 0.1 seconds is annoying sometimes.

 

[Dryk]

Man, I'm tired of explaining this. The cash unlocks are sidegrades. They give advantages in certain areas and disadvantages in others. It is the exact same F2P system used in TF2. If you lost to a guy with a cash unlock, it's because you were fighting on his turf, and I'd shit a goddamn brick if I ever saw one guy kill a platoon (~48 players!) without hacking.

Like the rocket launchers, you can lock on from really far away and do a bit less damage if you pay, or you can stick with the starting one and get shot trying to get in range. Or if you're in a jet you can have the ability to kill things if you pay, or twice as much afterburner for free, which isn't even enough to outrun the lock-on missiles everyone else on the ground or in the air has paid for nine times out of ten.

I love this game but I will not defend the way the business model is currently being handled

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

snippity

Infiltrators are a unique issue, mainly because they're the most underpowered class in the game (they only received SMGs very recently, and prior to that were limited to a couple of very underwhelming scout rifles for close-range combat) and also because SOE really designed them as snipers. Their cloak is most effective at longer ranges for breaking spot, and all of their 100-250 cert unlocks are sniper rifles.

The fact is that prior to the addition of SMGs, if you were at close range at all as an infiltrator you were at a disadvantage, regardless of how much cash you pumped into the class. There was no decent close-combat weapon. In fact, before the February update, the best close-combat weapon for a TR infiltrator was the default TR pistol that all classes start with.

And as for the cert grind - it gets easier as you get better at the game. I am literally sitting with ~2,000 certs in the bank. It was 3,400 before the Feb update when I certed SMGs and a bunch of infiltrator stuff. I play a couple hours a day on average and I pull in 30-50 certs an hour on a good day. For a new player, the grind is abominable, but once you've figured out what does and doesn't give good XP it goes much faster.

Like the rocket launchers, you can lock on from really far away and do a bit less damage if you pay, or you can stick with the starting one and get shot trying to get in range.

I main HA and I still use the default rocket launcher. It's the only rocket launcher with enough of a blast radius to reliably kill infantry and maxes. Long-range combat with it is a matter of getting used to the rocket drop - the only time I'd say a lock-on launcher is necessary is if you want to fight fighters or magriders specifically, since both are very hard to hit with the dumb-fire launcher if the pilot/driver knows what they're doing.

Or if you're in a jet you can have the ability to kill things if you pay, or twice as much afterburner for free, which isn't even enough to outrun the lock-on missiles everyone else on the ground or in the air has paid for nine times out of ten.

The flyer secondary options are fucking stupid at the moment - both lock-on missiles and rocket pods are way more useful than the extra afterburners. That's probably the one part of the game that I would say is currently pay-to-win (although I was a good boy and earned my rocket pods). SOE's plan for "balancing" fighters has had more to do with buffing the shit out of burster maxes and adding multi-target lock-on launchers than changing the actual weapon options.