Direction Shift - 2015

Abstract

Planetside 2 has lacked clear direction for development since release, with the community Roadmap ignored as development needs shifted due to other pressures. This has led to a game with little long term engagement as its unique selling point, scale, has been ignored for too long.

Post PS4 release development should focus on three things:

Embrace the scale of the world
Encourage team play
Territory that matters

The changes listed below will hopefully give us a game that is engaging for new players and deep enough to keep their interest for years at a time.

Introduction – history of PS2's direction including current

I want to talk about the games direction now that we have a shaken up development team along with a new company. Before I go into my core suggestions I want to talk about the games past to hopefully explain why I feel the games previous direction has not made the game as successful as it could potentially be at this stage after release.

As you may or may not know PS2 originally was going to be an update of the original game with better graphics and features yet retaining the same core systems. It was decided however that a whole new game was the way forward with the new tech that SOE developed, and PS Next was formed. John Smedley let us know on his blog (check out my comment the day he posted it – I was waiting) about some core features of the game and that there was a 3 year plan, as well as the intention to have the game still running in 2025. Also notice that he mentioned E Sports in his ideas for post release; the only thing in his list that we have (had) nearly three years on.

The E Sports dream was realised early on with the partnership with MLG (see this announcement) however as soon as the year was up they dropped PS2 like an unpleasant hot potato. The MLG push failed – the game did not provide the tension of a small scale game where individuals matter and skill is recognised. Go watch one of the War Reports and I challenge you to pick out times before the post-match review with the leaders when a player’s name is mentioned; even squad leaders were not recognised doing their jobs. For those of you that remember often the commentators were called out by the community for poor knowledge, poor reporting and often simply insulting the groups that had gone out of their way to get involved. Often the matches were on public servers which meant that anyone could get in game and disrupt the match. The matches also focused on individual bases which as we know quickly descend into spawn camps with one team pushing out and getting slaughtered. SOE went out of their way to create the Nexus battle island for competitive matches but it was hardly used outside of a few matches due to issues. Aside from this feature the spectator camera was made yet this was it. No other tools were made for the MLG staff – no way of seeing both teams at once, no statistics for the teams or individuals, no way to follow players easily, etc. Because of this lack of tools in my outfit’s match the commentators simply lost our enemy, VG, for minutes at a time and looked at an empty mountainside while multiple Gal drops occurred slightly out of camera shot.

While on the subject of the game as a spectator event in early interviews with ex Creative Director Matt Higby the ability to stream was touted as being an exciting feature, which does work but just go and check out the PS2 Twitch Directory 2 years on. Streaming is dead - little to draw people in with no tension like CS, DotA or H1Z1. At the time of writing PS2 has 200 compared to 20000 viewers with the three games I mentioned. There are a number of reasons for this failure, not least of which is the punishing requirements to play this game (there is no game that aims so high), but it does not make for a good stream platform. Another problem is the lack of tension in fights with respawn 10 seconds away and the fight likely within view of your spawn point… and often the fight is camping the spawn point. Go and watch one of the dozen or so streamers on Twitch for 30 minutes. Count how many times they show you the scale of the world by travelling across it between bases, and while you are at it count how many times they simply redeploy to a fight. This bypassing of the world to essentially different team death match arenas shrinks the scale of the game and if you watch the Server Smashes, the acid test of the game, this is the way strategy is played – not by tactical maneuvers according to the terrain but by redeployment into a spawn room to juggle capture timers.

Yet apparently territory is not of major concern to the team and has not been for a while, if David Carey’s comment in his AMA after leaving is anything to go by (although he is right; play the game if you like it and if not, don't). There is the previous producer of the game saying that if you want strategy (well, territory and resources mattering) go elsewhere – yet PS2 is the only FPS that can possibly provide large scale strategy - the nearest is Battlefield with at most 128 players which does the whole shooting mans thing a whole lot better because of the small scale.

Aside from the above pushes we have seen the game pushed by the need for new content with vehicles and weapons dropped in and often left broken for months such as the Valkyrie and Spitfire turret. The Valkyrie could make money through cosmetics, yet very few people use them due to how weak they are. We finally saw some tweaks in the latest patch. We also saw the OMFG initiative eat 6 months of development time to make the game perform better, which was understandable, but the amount of players that we lost with the drought of new content didn't seem to cover what we got back in the end. We also saw a big push for the Implant system which very few people wanted (if the old Roadmap votes are anything to go by) yet was forced through simply to make money rather than improve the game in any meaningful way. Of course the company needs to make money, yet Player Studio could have been the method and so much money could be made if they made it so artists could make class armour or cosmetics for all the vehicles rather than a select few that are now over-saturated. How many helmets and Harasser cosmetics do they expect one person to buy?

Many updates have seen the developers start things yet not finish them time and time again; the Mission system, Resource system, Amp Station Overhaul (there are 3 versions in game), Biolab Overhaul (4 versions in game), Valkyrie and Tier 4 Implants (at least, what to do with multiple of them) as some very obvious examples. They lack clear focus, for whatever reason, to complete things fully.

Currently we have the development team concentrating on the PS4 release and along with that the new player experience. This is certainly the right thing to do (aside from fixing the recent physics/flight control changes) as PS2 needs to be a game that holds players hands through the first few battles to help them get used to the games size. However after this we need to see the developers (and if we truly have the same number as H1Z1 then no problem as they are pumping out content) focusing on other big features that will make the game better for all involved and keep people playing for longer.

Main: Focus

PS2 needs to have more appeal to both play and watch because as it is we have a game with a dwindling population, few viewers and with client side hit detection an arguably sub-par FPS experience. Redeployside strips away any need for travel across the large continents and removes the sense of scale of the maps and fights. Redeployside is a very simple strategy which is only compounded when combined with the near pointless resource system we currently have. Because of this leading is often dull with leaders only looking for farms rather than strategically wise and interesting battles. Command is an almost unrealised feature with clear oversights still present since beta stages with platoon leaders having fewer abilities than their squad leaders and hardly any tools to help herd players enjoyably or to be rewarded for their efforts.

So what should the focus be instead? The epic scale of battle, tight tactical play and fights over territory with real meaning is what we need in my opinion. Some of the changes below should be easy, while others would require real focus from the entire development team to realise.

I want to see core improvements in the following three areas:

1. Embrace the scale of the world

Right now we have a game that rewards skipping travel time and punishes players that don’t with defeat. Redeployside is a tumor that needs removing to enable players to experience the phenomenal terrain between bases and the dynamic fights they can generate. We also see fights stagnating at triple point bases and Biolabs because they are so easy to defend.

Here are some ideas to help:

Heavy restriction on redeploy past 40 or 45%; Mutarde made a good post about removing squad deploy from regions if it will go past the cap. I also suggest making spawn beacons only work if you are within say 300m of the beacon. This makes it harder to abuse beacons with redeploy to bypass fights and travel time.
Reduce cap times on triple point territories to avoid fights stagnating at them for hours at a time, say down to 15 minutes for 2 points, 5 minutes for 3 points and change it so that holding one point makes the timer still tick in the attackers favour but take 20 minutes. This also makes it easier for smaller skilled forces to make a difference by holding single points.
Biolabs are a bitch to attack for two reasons - tight choke points and long travel time for attackers to get to them. Give attackers the option to partially shut off the shield bubble surrounding the landing pads by destroying a generator on each of them, allowing the attackers to break that choke point and push inside.
Add protective garages and warehouses with shields that attackers can use to deploy Sunderers more safely. Shields can be bypassed with shield diffusers and controlled by a hackable terminal like current light bridges.
Sunderer AMS Cloaks – just like the original game these would allow empires to set up hidden spawn points that aircraft will have a harder time spotting and destroying. Hey, the devs are looking at adding them, awesome!
Possibly scrap hard spawns outside of main facilities and towers. Players could still redeploy to friendly Sunderers via reinforcements needed for territories still at the above rates. This should encourage fights revolving around terrain features instead of spawn camping, with more of a role for air and ground vehicles. Imagine the fight between Peris and Vanu archives if the outposts could not be spawned at, with both sides bringing up Sunderers to support the pushes as Harassers tear around armour columns and aircraft brawl in the skies for dominance.

2. Encourage team play

Squads and outfits are the key both for player retention and potentially appeal so as much as possible should be done to encourage squad play as well as team play in general. Players cooperating is what MMOs should be about, yet as we know only a third of players even bother to join outfits and squads. Many people play MMOs simply for their clan/guild/outfit and if you can keep the group in the game you keep their players. Once a guild makes the decision to switch to a new game it is very difficult to get them back again.

Here are some suggestions to enhance teamwork:

Buddy system between a pair of players so that they can better follow and support each other. Buddy icon would stick to the edge of the screen to ease coordination. Same XP bonuses as for helping squad mates would apply.
Decent squad leaders streaming could be excellent for the game especially with their squad members also streaming. Perhaps reward players with Directives for streaming; ranks could be earned with hours watched, number of viewers, time spent effectively leading and streaming, captures while streaming, etc.
Leadership tools - so many ideas come to mind (see my command overhaul for all of them) but give us the teased fire teams and companies, a Q menu overhaul so we can use it to designate targets, place waypoints and direct our squads as well as so many quality of life improvements.
Steel rain as a squad perk – looks cool and makes it easier for squad leads to get their squads together if we restrict normal beacons as above.
More personalisation of character (individual elements rather than just helmet and armour; make it so we can customise faces for example) so that people can recognise your character and better interact.
Internal view as an option in transports to help build atmosphere; idle animations for passenger with them fidgeting, checking weapons, sleeping, etc
Check Gal drops to make them less likely to fail and throw you off target also make it so they can only drop from x meters rather than sitting at the flight ceiling boringly. Green light to drop safely, red when not.
Valkyries buffed to usefulness – a few tweaks to Hover Airframe and a few weapons is not enough. We have been yelling for passive squad spawn since it hit PTS. Do it.
Tank rumble seats for passengers so that tanks can help transport players between bases after we hopefully cripple redeployside as the main strategy.
Outfit improvements and advancement - it was on the Roadmap yet never got anywhere near live. Outfit points, perks and customisation would go a long way to keeping outfits engaged with the game.
On top of outfit decals add in outfit camo and helmets - although instead of making them purchasable with certs make it offer a small discount to the SC cost.

3. Territory that matters

Current alerts are apparently meant to be placeholders for the intercontinental lattice which would have had empires pushing across the continents and onto the next ones, yet that never happened. We also saw alert types removed leaving us with just the current version which simply does not cater for large populations like the game should have with fights raging on most of the continents. As it stands we have territory that only matters during alerts, and the individual region perks come down to three things: Tech Plants for MBTs, 3 point bases for easy defence and Biolabs for farming.

Here are some ideas to make territory matter:

More interesting alerts – at the very least bring back facility alerts as a first step. Give outfits and players more recognition for their work during alerts when they end. Saying that alerts shouldn't be needed if territory mattered without them.
- Make cut off territory not count towards alert percentage, an excellent suggestion by Noktaj on reddit.
The resource system later phases are simply vital and should be a priority for any strategic game to take place. Even if we do not get the full resource system then we need to get cut off territories having drawbacks – reduce/remove resource gain from defenders and reduce the spawn rate at the spawn room by a significant amount. See the link for more details.
Meaning for territory – right now it simply does not matter. We need facility benefits that matter like the Tech Plant’s MBT enabling. For the Biolab we could have spawn timers decreased and the Amp Station could see resource flow improved so bases take longer to drain. Territory 2.0 hinged around the main facilities with outposts giving perks like powerful AA batteries, radar installations and resource pipelines which would be brilliant but would take months of work I imagine.
Continental capture with intercontinental lattice. With the continents we have now we could get this happening, with some fudges when it comes to warpgate capture but we could have it.

Note that the above changes are not all that I think are important (see the rest of this site), just the main categories that I think will make the game much more interesting and give it longevity.

Finally: Outcome in 2 years time

What I want is the game to have the accessibility that the developers have been pushing for to get new players in and hooked but also has the depth to keep their interest once they understand how it all works. Right now we have a game that is a mile wide and an inch deep – let’s add some depth to it by embracing the scale of the MMOFPS so that we can still be playing in 2025 as Smedly wanted.

In two years time we could have a successful game both on the PC and on consoles, Player Studio artists making huge amounts of money and outfits alive and kicking, making their mark on an ever improving world.