Planetside 2's New Player Experience doesn't fail where you'd think it does

[@sebastiancalderon2172]

one of the most fun fight I've had in this game was in a construction base, yeah sounds weird. and it was not just me but my squad and the almost 100 dudes in that base. respect for the guy that build that base and the way it was built

[@Zapnl]

When bases had invincible walls and had to be taken by infantry, it was nice because it created a new (and always changing) environment to fight in that kind of approached the first years of 'massive open field fights'. Now we're back to just killing them with artillery :

[@aierkopfable]

what drew me in was always the community of people I played with, most memorable noob trap were tomcats for me, ran those until i literally got a tell from a friendly pilotman telling me that if I keep running those I wont go anywhere

[@96samcosmo]

The biggest problem I have when teaching new players to play is the unintuitive redeploy loop that is part of the process of finding fights. For myself, I would be able to look at the continent map, or deploy and look at the mini map, and quickly decide whether or not a fight is worth my time. The idea of ditching boring fights just didn't really click for new players though.

[@ThankYouForComing]

Changes to Revive Grenades would make the biggest difference in the way people play the game right now. The core gameplay loop of "coordinated play" is so unbelievably stale. Removing them from Grenade Bandolier or giving them a cooldown would be great.

[@PeterBarnes2]

A cooldown could go a long way: when it's the only thing keeping a fight going, it'll get cut substantially shorter, but if there's a saturation of rez nades, it might give players the time to think more carefully about what else they can do (in that fight or other than that fight). It might have to be something more than 30 seconds, to accomplish that, though.

[@unit220]

Crazy how many issues were added post ~2015. I was so hopeful that the state of the game would only improve from there haha.

[@K1ngju]

downloaded video and torrenting it rn on 8chan

[@NIBSERK]

Thank you for this video. I was recommended to watch this and has widened my perspective on this game's issues with the new player experience. I laughed pretty hard during the underwater combat portion because when you stop and think about the idea of underwater combat in the way PlanetSide 2 has executed on it, who the HELL thought to themselves "yo, you know what would be freaking SICK?!?! WHAT IF! everything was in slow motion and super awkward?!" lmaoo Thanks again for the video and insight man! ✌👽

[@nieuwe000]

Dont think the rev nade being removed would be all that great but, i would love for it to not be affected by the grenade bando anymore. Making it more of a one time use great revive wave that would still need to be managed a little bit.

[@Alex3Mythical]

I remember trying to get into A2A years ago, got the Coyote Missles and I got scammed so hard for my certs back then. It felt like the biggest noob trap there is

[@tacoboy2218]

i play on and off so im a new player only lvl 13 or so but i cant keep engaged because of how much is going on i just die over and over without much feed back on how to improve

[@Chris_Tootoo]

I was playing ConsoleSide when it first came out, the early years of the game was fun when the game was vibrant and filled with more than the players we got now. ConsoleSide doesn’t have a tutorial anymore and the Noob Island of Koltyr is closed.

[@thel8815]

I was one of those medics sitting in the biolab L shape throwing revive nades to get "quick" xp... I hit the bell icon btw ;)

[@uc7953]

Its sad knowing that none of this will ever be done by the dev team. This junk is here to stay in the game and it will never go away. Thanks Wrel.

[@knaroef2979]

Great vid like always, but I strongly believe angled grip isnt really a problem. I've had quite a bit of fun with it and I feel like it is a nice sidegrade to grip/laser. Zyr0s kind of convinced me to use it for a few scrims, its nice, even if I won't give up laser personally.

[@sebastiendominique666]

As a new player, I love this game! Never found a similiar game. I not a good shooter but I find my enjoyment being a medic or a engineer! I like the flow of people. When we raiding a base, all the team running trying to enter the gate. Dying is part of the game an the respawn is fast enough to come back! I don't care to win a fight on my own but I enjoy wining as a team. Maybe am just to old.

[@schmiddy5884]

The new player conundrum is one of the biggest wordshells in planetside. Kinda been enjoying helldivers a lot and that game tells you the very basics and just let’s u know that you’ll die a lot. I think the biggest hurdle for planetside is that the killcam in combination with the slow respawn pace is what really annoys new players. Respawning after a 10 second slide show of cold and hot hedging them only to run 2 minutes and get killed by a max. It wouldn’t matter if you can spawn on teammates or get into the thick of it quickly. But both non interactive gameplay and the dynamic of fights make it extremely hard for people to enjoy the gameplay loop unless they are already good at shooters or deranged.

[@Lukas-rm1il]

Also cortium mining is insane pls do not remove it : )

[@Alexrocksdude_]

I want to remove everyone who places stupid silos just to farm xp from the game

[@Lukas-rm1il]

@@Alexrocksdude_ oh no actual construction main spotted

[@boxinthefield]

At the very least deconstruct the silo when you're done sucking a spawn dry. This gives the nodes a chance to respawn. Win-win

[@jungii]

Great video, watched it all, liked and subscribed, favourited and bookmarked, downloaded as well, but saved it into a private playlist just in case.

[@Andrew-up7sf]

I started playing planetside 2 for the 3 faction territory control in a giant map concept. Though, the game continues to disappoint me with almost every update, these days I mostly play it as a sandbox farming simulator. The large scale gameplay is still cool and I love the faction identity behind it. Planetside is lucky that they don’t have any competition, otherwise I would have moved on to a better version of this type a game.

[@PapaDangalos]

How do I get my killstreaks to popup like that during gameplay? Is this a mod or is it a setting?

[@DokPYT]

It's a game overlay called recursion stat tracker. recursiontracker.com/

[@Lukas-rm1il]

I think it would be great if they would remove the mentioned weapons, but they sold reskins of it so this is probably not possible... Is there a way of nerfing them without making them unplayable? I dont know, the weapons have to be reworked completely I think...

[@opshax]

I would have personally included G2G launchers in the list because they encourage poor player behavior and add more chip damage that vehicle player doesn't need. Limiting the weapons that have underbarrel grenade launchers would be good, but I would miss it on my medic BR secondary (it's my medic anti-max/AV). I think you should have also included explosive crossbow bolts. Those have no place in the game. Before they make more changes to A2G weapons, I'd like to see them change how auraxes work for those weapons, especially in the state of 90% flak and many players demanding they become tickle weapons. Perhaps, change it to damage done instead. I think the launcher directive could also use a similar change and HA should get a vehicle damage option for their directive. I am generally against removing reznades because I think it might benefit good shooters too much and might make it too hard for your average player to break up a 2kd heavy pointhold, and reduce the chances to get away with 6040s and 7030s. Concerning NPE, I don't see a fix beyond wiping all of our collective memories how to play the game and forcing us to explore and learn again. As much as I love QRF with valks, that being the main playstyle for 80% of the game is not good. I would like to see that drop down to maybe 40% so we can see some more variety.

[@Dan-vb5gc]

loving the content!

[@HPmcDoogle]

I agree with a lot of items being necessary to remove, however, Stalker must stay. As a person who avidly enjoys stalker infiltration, i don't play stalker to focus on getting kills, i play stalker to totally mess with the heads of players new or old by going around and causing chaos in large fights or tormenting people who are alone by pestering them. Its fun that way, stalker isnt some MLG super death kill murder class, its a novelty that is fun to use when done right.

[@HateMachinist]

Played since beta. The scale is what drew me in and kept me around. There are always different ways to deal with situations, so I always feel rewarded for thinking outside of the box. For newer players, harassers and aircraft are so frustrating to deal with, it is a common reason to exit game. And they are nearly immortal in the hands of veteran players. Not giving lock-ons as a default weapon to deal with those is equivalent to removing their abilities to deal with them. New players can't fly and are basically free-kills for even intermediate pilots, so that is not a realistic option. So what is left, really?

[@karaboga5984]

OMG they brought the Airburst gun from Battlefield to Planetside...

[@mikeblank8133]

I agree with everything you said, but I was able to tolerate all of it anyway, what really killed it for me was none of my friends being willing to play the game. They would see stuff like the implants, and how underwhelming the starting vehicles were, and wouldn't play more than an hour before uninstalling it, bc the road to being "competitive" was way too long.

[@KRJ893]

This is exactly the problem with games taking a 'pay to not grind' route, plenty of people will see it and just not take either option. Much better to put everyone on the same playing field and then make money be things to look cool and other such things, making vehicles take forever to cert in as a new player without membership is not the way.

[@burtenplays]

With a fresh 3 weeks after not playing in several years it can be a bit monotonous, infiltrators and that cloaking atv engagement is usually one sided and not fun at all. Coming from TF2 so not really fair since it's packed full of random goofy encounters with the enemy it kinda feels lifeless just kill, get kills, capture objective. The anti material rifles are my favorite particularly to clean someones melon off their shoulders but really doesn't feel useful against vehicles like you're just advertising shoot me and it takes forever to take down anything impossible if an engi is repairing. Could just be me but that's what I was kinda feeling using the am rifles is like, usually end up getting assists or maybe a lucky final shot but never once taken a vehicle out from full with it. The construction seems really cool but kind of pointless since everything just gets fired at by tanks from a distance and just a lack of any action at them, other than an infiltrator or a light assault loitering around. When I seen it I thought it would be like mini sieges between capture locations getting assaulted by a bunch of infantry, nope a tank or two on a hill. That was just some things that will probably have me pack it up again here soon, lots of positives but probably not enough to be entertaining for a prolonged amount at least for me coming from 1700+ hours of TF2 as my most recent go to game.

[@theIcemankidd]

Not going to mention pocket orbitals? Biggest cancer on the game currently, only available to veterans, and sometimes being spammed- completely *literally* making the game unplayable.

[@PeterBarnes2]

Been a while since I've played, but I've always thoroughly enjoyed the underwater combat. It's good grinding your teeth on not just speed, but also on managing your position: cover and flanking, retreat and evasion, pursuit and hunting. I've only ever played solo, so maybe it's too hard to train/coordinate these things, but it's definitely a fun environment if you practice it. If you want to get an easy feel for it, drifter jet LA with a carbine lets you forget much of the underwater aspect, while exploiting enemy weaknesses, though carbines will still drop off quickly compared to the underwater weapons. When you're done in the kiddy pool, move on to something like HA or Medic. The most important thing is knowing to switch between the swim tool and your primary (which should be your pick of underwater weapon) very often. You need to act on that instinct to *move.* If you practiced your underwater LA enough then you should already know how to navigate to advantageous and well-secured positions, but you have to make it happen rapidly. (I would also recommend practicing your swimming technique: LA-mains will remember that there is less drag when you face 90 degrees to your velocity, and never strafe. The same holds when swimming.) Accurate long-range shots are valuable, but controlling the engagement is your main concern: can't just wiggle your way out of an exposed flank. I would also recommend ditching the underwater sidearms for something higher DPS: if they're far you can avoid engaging and reload, if they're close then there's no bullet drop-off. If you really wanted to fix it, I don't necessarily disagree with reducing the movement penalty, but consider if damage were reduced across the board when underwater, driving up TTK enough to make tactical thinking the go-to solution. Then, add a Suit (as in suit-slot equipment) that takes away that damage reduction (making you more vulnerable), but also buffs movement (walking, swim-tool, and maybe LA jets) when underwater. Underwater combat gets slowed down so that it's not as painful when the other guy shoots first, but tactical maneuvers are still the name of the game.

[@0sba]

Agreed on everything but the coyotes. Personally I learned a lot from using coyotes when they were introduced as a fledgeling pilot in 2014. After about one month, I became good enough to compete without the coyote against practically anyone, but before then, coyotes helped me in finding enjoyment while flying. This video, while meant to examplify the new player experience, goes into a lot of the grievances I personally had with Planetside that made me decide to step back from the game entirely. With UE5 out, I am sure we will soon see a new indy made MMOFPS that can fill the gaping hole that Planetside's miss management of the genre has left. The largest grievance I personally have with the game are the revive nades too; I wish we could have had a lanesmash season that banned revive nades entirely. That would have been a very interesting experience.

[@hckr_-gh7se]

ironically i have the same story for infantry, but it began in vehicles (and no i wasnt running hesh lol), being able to survive my own stupidity in a vehicle made reflecting on my decision making much easier, so when i got a computer that could allow me to play infantry the switch was not as jarring as playing the game for the first time as infantry might be. that said i think you and i are exceptions because most people will stick within their local minimums, which would be coyotes and hesh, and never get beyond them.

[@soulshinobi]

Though I don't agree with all points, the "return to basics" philosophy is really what the devs need to be implementing. I've been around for the introduction of some of these problems (crossbow, scorpion, helios), and it's the introduction of these "non-gameplay" gimmicks that made me leave games like Warframe. Stop tacking crap on and refine the experience.

[@unrealkalel3130]

I have to disagree somewhat with the point "players will always chose the path with the least resistance". I don‘t think this is true generally for new or veteran players. I started in 2019 and of course got my butt kicked by most other players, but there are so many good videos out there on this game and NOT just content like "how to best farm certs". At some point I got into directive weapon grind and this is also not the way of least resistance. Yes, there are a lot of sweaty heavies riding the meta wave, but that‘s not the majority either. Otherwise good video!

[@hobog]

Construction could be maybe revived by removing much more of the paygate but keeping the low survivability and no-deploy zones. Having to run around manually placing modules is dumb too

[@junebug9267]

My noob trap was the OHK shotgun ambusher playstyle. I could get more kills but i plateaued at 1-1.5 KD REAL quick and didn't get any better or learn how to play the game properly. Regarding other points, UBGL gives a nice anti-max capability to some other classes but is too spammable. Remove its resupply from ammo packs. And finally, my Hot take. Remove C4. Havoc grenades, UBGL, Rocket Launchers, and Archer make it unnecessary as a Max counter and it's far too spammable. It enables toxic playstyles like c4 esf and i truly don't think its necessary, as much as the point hold c4 heavies might think it is.

[@xMinos]

You're suggesting the removal of rocket launchers and archers, so Maxes have fewer counters? Why?

[@junebug9267]

@@xMinosno, im saying remove C4 becaseu those other are enough of a counter already

[@DokPYT]

Ambushers are definitely a great point, i didnt think about it much but it could easily be on this list. You only go in or you dont, not much nuance that keeps you from being able to make decisions to prevent your death. Removing c4 probably has a lot of ramifications that are hard to forsee because of how universally used it is.

[@HateMachinist]

Hard disagree on the C4. Each stick costs 100 nanites, so they are not particularly spammable, but I do agree that people are using them to farm infantry more than they should. Without C4 tho, maxcrashes and riot-shields will break every biolab-fight because UBGL, launchers and archers are only truly viable in ranged trading scenarios. So if they just rush in, you are basically screwed. And then there is the other intended use: reminding vehicles spamming HESH from ridges into bases that they have the ability to move. That is the truly low-effort play which turns the game cancerous for everyone else. Having tools to deal with that is necessary.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Skill issue. OHK shotgun is a free kills playstyle. Very easy way to get a KD of around 6.

[@senturian]

The thing that people who post on reddit or make videos on this topic always miss is that by far the biggest deterrent for new players is just how good the elite players are - and how large a fraction of people they'll run into are like this now that the game is so old. There's no matchmaking or anything to insulate them from just getting dunked on by these people with no chance for hundreds of hours or more. Heck, I had a ton of FPS experience even before I came to PS2, i have maybe 3k hours in it, and yet I still have absolutely no chance against the 1200 IvI players that are freaking everywhere. The long and short of the new player problem with PS2 is how absurdly good its players are. When you are so good at the game you are indistinguishable from cheating...... the main oppressive force keeping both new and mediocre old players out is you.

[@Limskjordan]

This. A thousand times this. All I heard in the video is suggestions to remove what tools new players have to attempt to have fun. Dying 200 times is not gameplay. Most players only have a certain amount of hours per week to play. The choice between dying 200 times with no kills or playing something else is easy. This game desperately needs a way to separate the vets from the newbies and better tooltips and in-game tutorials that explain everything. For example, while japanese games often have complicated mechanics, the newer games put up enough message boxes and design their initial levels to tell players key mechanics and let them experience their effectiveness in a safe area.

[@lorded3000]

Scorpion is the most skilled weapon out there and it’s fun to piss off pro players with it.

[@sosnbinder9953]

link in bio

[@ZealousVidya]

I agree with almost of this, with the exception two things 1)stalker cloak; it's something that older guys and really bad players use because they don't really *want* to get good at infantry but still experience the fights and try to have an impact essentially playing the game in a suboptimal but slower paced way. Those type of guys are not hard to kill but bless their hearts, they're trying. Revive grenades are imho also fine; it allows for 'tactical' gameplay via pointholding when there otherwise are not many tools which enable it. It also increases peoples uptime w/ risk. *All of these other changes help casual players too, which arguably are more important than new players because you want to retain that 'core' group of players.

[@Deadman19951]

Keep your stupid opinions on your own channel (sorry Dok).

[@ptick16]

What's this nonsense about removing bing the stalker click?!? That's my favorite game style!!! Remove it because you don't like it? Nonsense. It takes skill and patience to get close to people in the middle of a fight for that knife kill. Then to quickly cloak again before the next kill.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

You don't like anything about the game.