Sitting it out

[adslrizla]

Well I've been on the beta for a week and a bit and I'm sitting the launch out I'm afraid.

Reason - big battles on Emerald at 10pm = OK (not great but playable). Big battles on Emerald at midnight = stupendous lag (we're talking 2-3 seconds here). Looking at the router console I can see it takes longer and longer for the server to respond - client is still sending plenty of data. The server is overloaded once the Eastern US starts playing - simple as that.

Now you could say "this is beta" and yes it is but this happens every night at around the same time. I don't believe that this game (or the server setup) is ready for pay-to-play.

Therefore I'm keeping my cash in my pocket until I see how this pans out. I don't trust ubisoft to do a decent job anyway....

 

[SilverHood]

dunno, Ubi did a decent job with the SB servers in the states

they aint GOA for starters

 

[.Cask]

Yep I've decided not to get it. I'm sure it'll be very popular and attract a lot of hardcore gamers but I just don't see it having much for the long-term.

Eve on the other hand has little for the short-term so I think it may the cure to my awful attention span with games lately.

 

[adslrizla]

I don't think it will attract hardcore gamers Cask - I think it'll attract casual gamers.

Quite apart from the lag issues the hitboxes are stupendously big (eg you can be close behind a MAX and it fires at someone else and you'll get hit cos your hitboxes overlap). There's also nothing to keep you going back - yeah it's fun but once you get to BR12 or so the thought of going back and capping the same bases you did last night is tedious to say the least. Hardcore FPS gamers will hate the whole COF and hitbox setup.

Maybe if the whole "huge battle" thing worked it'd be OK. However it doesn't (well not when the server cluster is full(ish) anyway) so that tosses that one out the window. The grief system is buggered (friendly fire penalties for those who don't know) - a TK'er can be in a vehicle and ram you up against a wall; you die and so does he but you get the grief points? Buggered, utterly buggered. Then you look at the xp idea and think "why?" It's pointless and actually skews the game in the wrong direction - people never defend and always attack cos there's more xp points to be had. My personal opinion is that this is SOE trying to get a minimum of 2 months subs out of the average gamer so you can level at BR20 and CR5. Who knows - they might have fixed some of the glaring bugs by then (like joysticks don't work for flying - well they do but they act like digital gamepads).

Really really not ready for prime time peeps - it is fun tho, but you'll probably be sick of it after your first month......

 

[SilverHood]

its not about leveling *sigh*

go play EQ if you want leveling

it's about pick up and play in a MMO universe

ever played EQ? DAoC? + clones ?

You need to spend atleast 3-6 months of hardcore playing to be able to take part in the end game

that is NOT fun

PlanetSide, on the other hand, has no pointless level grind.
You join, you take part. Being of a low level won't mean that your high lvl enemy can squash you like a bug.


besidess, people still play CS after all these years? Don't see why people wouldn't be playing PS in a year

 

[Xtro]

Originally posted by adslrizla
I don't think it will attract hardcore gamers Cask - I think it'll attract casual gamers.

Some of the most mental clans I've known from Tribes are planning to play en masse. I don't mean your common garden "lets have a beer and play" type I mean your "we have a command system with medals and rewards and 400 players who call me SIR" Ub3Rl337 nobs.

I like PS as I can join a squad, or bugger off on my own sniping, hacking etc. Then there's the piloting...weee.

As for lag in big battles etc? I really don't have a problem atm anyway and as we'll be playing on Amsterdam server any beta experience of lag etc will be irrelevant.

As for long-term, in every MMO game they add content. This will be the same. If they don't I'll probably stop playing after a couple of months, but I will have had a lot of fun from Day ONE. Whereas in EQ, DAOC etc you have to chain yourself to the pc to hit cuddly pigs to for weeks on end to get anywhere.

Its not a level fest, I can enjoy it with the 5 spec points I get at BR1, nm Br20. When I play I don't have an eye on the BEP or CEP bars, I think...hmm...I'm gonna kill you if its the last thing I do!

On a side note one thing thats impressed me with the player base is that I can chat to enemy players after battling them and LAUGH about killing each other and discussing what weapons pissed each other off more. No FFS IM GONNA KILL U N00BBBBBBIE Cs type shite. Had a TR MAX pinned down in a valley last night, I was combat eng and ran into him - placed a load of turrets behind rocks, in defilades etc as I ran about and the poor monkey couldnt move in case he got torn up

Anyway I'll sub and see how it goes. If I get bored, I'll stop...simple

 

[adslrizla]

Then why are people obsessed with gaining bep points? It is about levelling I'm afraid - so you can use more weapons/vehicles/etc. It's not like a rpg in that you can start playing a new character and not get wasted every 30 seconds by a "higher level" character.

It screws the game over too. Eg : you cap a base and it's obvious there's going to be an almost immediate counterattack - what happens? 95% of the players in the SOI bugger off to the next base after the usual melee around the vehicle terminals because they can get more bep/cep points that way. So the base gets capped by the enemy; you retake it - repeat ad infinitum.

The only players that don't do this are the ones who :

a) have a clue;
b) have all the bep/cep points they want;
c) don't care about bep/cep

and sadly that accounts for less than 5% of them.

Once you level out on bep (I'm not interested in cep) you'll realise that 95% of people on the server are morons who would TK you in a second if it meant they got more bep.

The point of these bep/cep points if it's not about levelling? You tell me then.

Personally I think they should scrap the bep completely and just give you a fixed amount of cert points. I can see a reason for cep, but it could use modifying to reflect the actual quality of the leader.

All of this would be tolerable if the big battles worked at peak times. They don't. There's way too much lag. Big(ger) battles when it isn't peak time in the US are fine. This indicates (to me anyway) that the servers can't cope - we're less than two weeks from launch and the servers still randomly boot loads of people at peak times

Then you have all the bugs still there - CTD's, characters getting stuck between worlds permanently (well until a server restart anyway), joysticks not working, keybindings/general options randomly disappearing, etc etc etc.

The game is fun but is it fun enough (and stable enough) to start paying 13 Euros a month for? I don't think it is right now which is why I'm going to sit it out. Maybe in a couple of months it'll be ready.....

NB 13 Euros/month is a guesstimate OK?

 

[Will]

If I remember correctly, this week was load testing of the servers, so lag is to be expected. This is a beta, not a free-play period, so I don't expect it to be perfect.

I'm at work, so I don't have time to write an essay.

 

[adslrizla]

Yeah it was a bit long

Last night wasn't load testing mate. In fact there's only been a couple of nights of load testing - and oh what fun they were

Having said that it looks like there will be ten US servers to pick from so it should be possible to find one that isn't lagging like hell

It would be very interesting to see what we're going to get in Europe before we shell out.

/me bets there will be 5 maximum

 

[Xtro]

Well mate, I play these games with a mix of people I've met from previous FPS scenes/games and real life friends so I guess I'm lucky.

In PS I'll be playing with the same bunch as well as people from BW, people I played daoc with and people I played tribes with so I'm looking forward to it all the more.

I don't ever have to group with random llamas so I don't encounter any BEP whores *shrug*. It was the same with Tribes - public servers are shite unless you have friends on there, private clan or league servers were far superior.

Due to the above I've always had a laugh each time I've played and if none of my mates are on I'll just go off sniping or crash my reaver into something . The joy of being in an outfit I suppose.

 

[bult]

About the lag issues i think its too early to say. In DAoC beta the server lag was HUUUUGE but at lauch day they had new servers waiting that made it lag alot less.

 

[Old_Bean]

One other thing, you can respec every 24hours. Lovely.
Something DAOC should offer.
The beta is going well, can't wait for retail. Got it preordered already.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

I have to agree with adslrizla (for once) i am not buying it at launch. I am addicted i have to say but when the bloody yanks come on it gets stupid. Now thats not the distance its also the servers not being able to keep up. Fair enuff servers in Amsterdam but there had better be more then a few or it will be the same problem as atm, i ping the US very well for my connection so all the lag i get is server side. a few servers in Amsterdam will just mean the same to me, server side lag not connection lag.

Oh and about that CS comment... we are talking a half decent game here not "I r l337 h4x0r" 12 year old script kiddies.

 

[adslrizla]

Emerald is lagging quite badly already today. Still playable but you get booted every now and then. Must be all the new beta players as it's normally OK at this time of day

Edit - looks like Emerald is full. Can't get in at all and it's now pinging higher than Johari

 

[Deadmanwalking]

thats all the CS players who couldnt get their mummy and daddy to buy them an FP sub playing it now.

 

[old.Iunliten]

Some evil lag problems on emerald today

had time to do the third stab with the knife before the sod died sometimes.

One sniper had time to turn around and snipe me between my 2 swings at one point.

Btw forceblade for TEH WIN!

Most people are very friendly btw, but I ran into some asses too.
Like a guy comes driving in a harasser, dismounts goes to gunner side, I sneak up driver side starts jacking because he has to move out of car to kill a guy. When he returns back to go to drive side, I sneak up on now my car, mans the cannon and kills him.

He didn't think it was as funny as I did

Btw I 2 hit anyone not in a max with forceblade and meleeboost implant but I have did 15+ stabs at a max and still not managed to get him down... So strange.

 

[adslrizla]

Would Silverhood like to comment on the latest patch where they say "After analyzing experience curves, we are reducing experience gained for soldier and vehicle kills. This is the first step in a multi-part experience overhaul and is the small part of the change."

Can you say level grind

I knew SOE would go back to the tried and tested formula that makes them money on MMORPGs

Edit : and we all know what "multi-part experience" is don't we? Get your wallets ready for the expansion packs It's so predictable - make it hard to level out within 6 months on all three factions (coming up for xmas by then remember?) then bring out the expansion pack. Now if you want your squad to stick together you all have to get it. It's not a MMOFPS it's a pure PvP MMORPG

 

[Gef]

I think its great! I been playing it all weekend, it probably crashed 3 times in total. As for lag, yeah sure in big fights it can get a bit choppy but its perfecty playable. On emerald last night I went to this one zone and it said the zone was full, took me 5 mins sitting in the jumpgate to get in, mass battle between TR and VS. Lag wasnt that bad, I had great fun dive bombing the TR base with about 100 peeps in it in my Reaver.

Reaver rules! Played for about 2 days and got to BEP11 which is plenty really for kitting yourself out with some decent stuff. Just need to wait a few days to 'forget' all those MAX suits I bought

 

[adslrizla]

Originally posted by Gef
Reaver rules! Played for about 2 days and got to BEP11 which is plenty really for kitting yourself out with some decent stuff. Just need to wait a few days to 'forget' all those MAX suits I bought

It'll take you a lot longer once it goes retail so make the most of it. XP gained for kills is now roughly 30% of what it was outside a SOI and 40% inside. Add that to the fact the number of players on now will far exceed the number when it's retail and it's gonna be a long slow grind back to BR11. Play the hell out of it now is my advice

There's an excellent post by JKD on the beta boards about where this game has gone wrong. As many of you don't seem to have access to these boards (dunno why that is) I've taken the liberty of copying it to here.

I'll stop moaning now and I hope the game is everything you all hoped for....

 

[Gef]

He's a bit of a whingebag isnt he, lots of crap in there so i'll sum it up.

"This game is just a massive, endless, skill-less, mindless brawl with nothing to aim for and nothing to differentiate skill or achievement."

Massive - Good
Endless - Good
Skill-less - Hmm..
Mindless Brawl - Wicked!!

 

[old.Iunliten]

He has some points, it was worth a read.

However my reasons for doubting is that very fast, the content will lack(as with most games you reach a point where the novelty progress are low to nothing) and it will all be down to which persons you meet, and with the intense system and not so chatty enviroment you will meet lots of less persons in planetside then per say daoc.

Never thought I would see myself saying downtime is good

Also so far I am failing to see the squad tactics. it is drop as many as you can and let each individual kill as many as possible.
Kills that somehow lack of skill(can't put my point on this one but somehow the interface feels a little well, random)

I am in doubts whetever to buy or not

 

[adslrizla]

You want to see the whinging there's already been from the hardcore FPS players mate There's an awful lot of them who are more than a tad fed up with the "spray'n'pray" nature of the game. They couldn't give a toss about any structure to the game - a big fight is all they want - but there's a fair amount that won't go near this at retail due to the way hitboxes and COF work (or don't depending on your point of view).

Me? Big fights are good (when they work), but that's all this is right now - big fight, drive/fly/walk somewhere else, big fight, drive/fly/walk back to where you were before etc etc. Needs to be something more than that for me. Especially since the big fights are gonna be considerably smaller fights come retail. Squads and outfits are prolly the best part but I see less and less people in the one I'm in being online at the times they used to be.

 

[Will]

Problem for the hardcore FPS players (I think I'm included in that) is that the hitboxes we are used to for those silky smooth headshots require far more bandwidth than a game of this scale can support. Personally I can live with that for a game of this scale.

 

[Gef]

Not to arsed about 100% accurate headshots etc, I like bombing people from a great height. I generate quite a lot of greif points, but ppl shouldnt get in the way of my missiles!

I'm ace at flying through trees now though, that takes skill! Especially with afterburner on...

 

[adslrizla]

Heh - there's a post here speculating a bit on why PS is like it is. Basically :

PS is to cater to the FPS market
SWG is to cater to the RPG market

What made me chuckle though was :

Two games to rule them all, two games to find them.
Two games to bring them all, and on the internet bind them.

And both (hopefully) in time for summer break.

 

[adslrizla]

Will - this may interest you then :

The FPS part of this game sucks. It is not good in any conceivable way. Every FPS guy out there, who has played enough to actually call himself one, won’t like this game. Yes, it is true that the greatest FPS out there will be reduced to the same level as any other player out there. He doesn’t hate it for this reason though. He hates it because there is no challenge. The CoF is not the only issue either. There is the fact that there are no hit boxes for location based damage. Every up close confrontation on foot turns into a spray and pray situation. If you both have the same type of weapons, it is purely chance on who will win. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve played, how well you know your weapon, or any other skill/experience factor. It only matters what weapon you happened to grab before the battle, just like JKD said.

It's pretty representative of what FPS players are saying once the initial "wow" factor wears off.

 

[Will]

Ah, but I haven't played the same sort of FPS games as yourself. I play Op Flash, which is all about squad-based play, and has the same sort of idea with vehicles, and limited infantry weapons. I was never big on twitch games (though I did have a career as a CS semi-pro..but I try to keep that in the past).

 

[adslrizla]

Oh hell I'm not a twitch player I prefer tactics to pure reaction time.

Give you an example - and it's an extreme one but it holds true for all the weapons (in fact it's worse with most of them) :

Even with a bolt driver and a completely stationary target there's a frightening amount of randomness as to whether you hit the target or not. See in other games there's locational hitboxes - make a head shot and they're dead, but a chest shot and they're not. PS with the single hitbox has to compensate for this with the randomness of the COF. And before anyone starts saying other games have COFs they don't work like PS! Try it out with a friend - take some shots with the bolt driver and watch some of them miss when you are doing exactly the same thing that you did when they hit.

I snipped that from a post I made on the PS beta forums. What I neglected to say (cos they all know it anyway) is that you can have the target zoomed in with the COF indicator entirely within the target's body area and the shot will still miss. This isn't a bug BTW it is apparently how it's meant to work.

 

[adslrizla]

Damn. Double post - sorry.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by adslrizla
Damn. Double post - sorry.

Delete owns you.