The PlanetSide Manifesto Reloaded

Purpose This document is intended for those who wish to know what was awesome about PlanetSide, some history about how it played out, what was terrible, how to make it better, and ultimately what PlanetSide 2 should look like. It is my hope that the great part of this game will be preserved and carried on while the perils of it will be lessons learned for game developers so they may never repeat those mistakes. I firmly believe that PlanetSide was one of the best gaming innovations in MMO history. Mistakes were made that doomed it from a business perspective, but the game design had some great innovations and it is a shame that it ended up the way it did. This document is a tribute to the great designs of the developers and for all those who love the game. Also, this document is written in the context of the first 4-5 years of PlanetSide. Developments over the past several years may not be accurately reflected. Since Planetside 2 is now real, Ive repurposed this document to also reflect how Planetside 2 compares to the principles and ideas presented here. PlanetSide 2 Grading scale A = Improvement over PS1 B = Parity with PS1 C = Regression from PS1 D = Serious Regression from PS1 F = Fail N/A = not applicable due to design change

Who I Am You should know the credentials of the author of this large document. PlanetSide players on Emerald know me as Malorn. I played NC mostly, with a brief stint on VS. I had the honor of leading Liberty - one of the best and most famous outfits in the early years of PS. We had some of the strongest talent in the game, attracted members from opposing empires and were part of some amazing accomplishments and strategic inventions. We had dominant names on the Leaderboard (before it broke) such as Halogod666, Xfactor, Chizow, Trevin, Timmy, ttt, and many others. We played with friends and foes and participated in some of the greatest achievements in PS, such as PlanetSides first world-lock; performed by the NC (we helped turn it blue 3 times). We participated in organized efforts with other outfits such as Freedom Guard, TCF, and eventually the Enclave in creating coordinated

response to defense. We pioneered Rapid Response and changed the face Emerald forever. We devised the A-S-S strategy which led to the Golden Age of NC dominance for nearly a year and a half. We had epic clashes with foes such as Ahriman Corps and KAAOS. I am a part of and represent players from all factions who love PlanetSide and have full command of every aspect of it. I was the 2 player to make CR5 and leader and founder of Liberty. I found the metagame with continental and global strategy the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects of the game as they were unique to PlanetSide and not possible in other games. Understanding how zergs moved, how continents
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were taken, and the resulting strategies to make them succeed is a great gift that I possess. I believe I am one of, if not the best expert in these aspects of the game. I am also a professional Software Engineer. I work for a large company on complex software and have been doing so for the last seven years. I understand software development and the lifecycle. I also have seen first-hand how really smart people with the best of intentions can sometimes end up making really bad decisions. Ive also seen how great software is made by brilliant minds. I have an immense passion for this game and would love to see nothing less than a wildly successful PlanetSide 2. So I apply my insights into game design, my experience with the game, and the support of a great many phenomenal players I had the honor of leading, and my passion for it in the hope that it is considered when creating PlanetSide 2. Contact information is at the end of this document.

Contents
1. Great Design Philosophies ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Skill Matters More Than Level ............................................................................................................ 5 1.2 Flexible Customization ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.2.1 Certification System ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.2.2 Implants ................................................................................................................................ ....... 6 1.2.3 Loadouts.................................................................................................................. ..................... 6 1.2.4 Vehicle Terminals ......................................................................................................................... 6 1.3 The Greatest Power is Teamwork (1+1=3) ......................................................................................... 7 1.4 Persistent World ................................................................................................................................. 8 1.4.1 Conquerable Bases....................................................................................................................... 8 1.4.2 Multiple Base Strategic Points ..................................................................................................... 8 1.4.3 Lattice System

.............................................................................................................................. 8 1.4.4 Warp gates ................................................................................................................................ ... 9 1.4.5 Three Factions .............................................................................................................................. 9 1.5 The Grief System ................................................................................................................................. 9 1.6 Paper-Rock-Scissors Design .............................................................................................................. 10 1.7 Command Rank ................................................................................................................................. 11 1.7.1 Command Rank 5 ....................................................................................................................... 12 2. Meta-Game and Global Strategy ............................................................................................................ 13 2.1 A Brief History ................................................................................................................................... 13

2.1.1 A Deep-Dive into Amerish-SearhusSolsar................................................................................. 15 2.2 Global Strategy...................................................................................................................... ............ 15 2.3 The Fourth Empire ............................................................................................................................ 17 2.4 CR5 Missions ................................................................................................................................... .. 18 2.4.1 Mission Creation ........................................................................................................................ 19 2.4.2 Mission Listing...................................................................................................................... ...... 20 2.5 Meta-Game Improvements ............................................................................................................ .. 21 2.5.1 CR5-Gifted Incentives................................................................................................................ . 21 2.5.2 Dynamic Population Caps .......................................................................................................... 21 2.5.3 Four Empires .............................................................................................................................. 22 2.5.4 Dynamic Lattice / Warp gate Links ............................................................................................ 23 3. Economics Continental Strategy .......................................................................................................... 24 3.1 The PS Economy ................................................................................................................................ 25 3.2 Making Progress...................................................................................................................... .......... 26 3.4 Manipulating Continental Strategy ................................................................................................... 26 4. Vehicles ....................................................................................................................................... ............ 27 4.1 Vehicle Rock-PaperScissors.............................................................................................................. 27 4.2 Air Vehicles......................................................................................................................

.................. 28 4.3 Ground Vehicles ................................................................................................................................ 30 4.4 BFRS ................................................................................................................................... ............... 33 4.5 Aircraft Balance ................................................................................................................................. 34 4.5.1 Concept: Empire-Specific Gunship ............................................................................................. 34 4.5.2 Concept: Medium-Dropships ..................................................................................................... 35 4.5.3 The Mosquito ............................................................................................................................. 36 4.5.4 Aircraft Cert Layout .................................................................................................................... 37 4.5.5 Concept: Altitude-based Balance............................................................................................... 38 4.6 Galaxies & Sunderers as Transport ................................................................................................... 39 4.7 Tanks and Mowing.................................................................................................................... ..... 40 5. Weapons & Infantry ................................................................................................................................ 41 5.1 Infantry Rock-Paper-Scissors ............................................................................................................ 41 5.2 Infantry Types ................................................................................................................................... 42 5.3 MAX............................................................................................................................ ....................... 43

5.3.1 MAX Ability Balance ................................................................................................................... 43 5.4 Weapons ................................................................................................................................... ........ 44 5.5 3 Person Camera ......................................................................................................................... 47 5.6 Weapon Balance ............................................................................................................................... 48 5.6.1 Heavy Assault Balance ............................................................................................................... 48 5.6.2 Medium-Assault Balance ........................................................................................................... 52 5.6.3 Striker Balance ........................................................................................................................... 53 5.7 Infantry Anti-Air Weapons ................................................................................................................ 54 6. Landscape: Bases & Towers, and Caves .................................................................................................. 54 6.1 Base Design ................................................................................................................................... .... 54 6.2 Towers........................................................................................................................ ....................... 58 6.2.1 Middle-of-nowhere Towers & Air Towers ................................................................................. 58 6.3 Caves ................................................................................................................................... .............. 59 6.4 Continent Design......................................................................................................................... ...... 59 6.4.1 World Size ................................................................................................................................ .. 60 6.4.2 Capitals.................................................................................................................... ................... 61 7. Why PlanetSide Failed ............................................................................................................................ 61 7.1 Planet-What? ................................................................................................................................... . 61
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7.2 Big Failure Robots ............................................................................................................................. 62 7.3 Cheaters ................................................................................................................................... ......... 62 7.4 OS Compatibility ............................................................................................................................... 63 7.5 Bad Release Timing ........................................................................................................................... 64 7.6 Steep Hardware Requirements......................................................................................................... 64 7.7 Steep Learning Curve & Awkward New Player Experience .............................................................. 64 8. Miscellaneous ....................................................................................................................................... .. 65 8.1 Music and Soundtrack of PlanetSide ................................................................................................ 65 8.2 Micro-Transactions ........................................................................................................................... 65 Contact ......................................................................................................................... ............................... 66

1. Great Design Philosophies

To understand the greatness of PlanetSide one must first understand the design philosophies that made it great. These are the designs without which PlanetSide would have been utter suck.

1.1 Skill Matters More Than Level

In PlanetSide, the difference between a BR 1 player and a BR 20 player was options. There was no direct power associated with battle-rank or level. A bullet from a BR 1 was just as lethal as a bullet from a BR 20. This is a critical design of the game, as it allows new players and inexperienced players a fair playing field. They can be useful. They can contribute immediately to the war effort. There was no period of time that they had to go and be useless before they got to play the real game as in many other MMOs (where you must achieve max level and gear grind to be competitive). In PlanetSide even that brand new noob can be competitive and a threat to a hardened veteran. The short of it is that skill matters more than level. This kept veterans playing and was a great promise to new players. It didnt matter how long you played the game. It didnt matter how much time you put into the game you were just as lethal as any other guy out there, and the game did not punish you for time not spent playing it. There was one deviation of this worth mentioning and that was the Annual Service Awards. At first they were just badges. Then the semi-auto sniper rifle was unlocked, followed by other new weapons. In the latest incarnation, Reinforced Exosuit was unlocked. This trend while good to veterans is essentially a penalty to newer players. They are still on the same playing field but they inherently have fewer options than the longtime vets. No matter what they do, they cannot overcome that advantage in options, other than waiting some years, at which time some other advantage would be given to the vets that they would have to wait time to overcome. Time-based rewards should never be present in a PlanetSide sequel because it hurts the lifeblood of the game new players. Planetside 2 Grade: APlanetside 2 features the same Battle Rank concept and appears to hold true to the ideals of Skill-matters-more-than-level. BR unlocks options in PS2, much like it did in PS1. It also makes side-grades available and allows one to fine-tune weapons. Certs unlock options, not power. The in-game store does sell power but only for ingame resources, and side-grades can be purchased with either, giving no strict level benefit. This system looks to be on-par with PS1. However, it did add offline skill advancement which I consider to be an improvement and a help for new/casual players to stay competitive in terms of options available to them.

1.2 Flexible Customization

While not always immediately obvious, PlanetSide had excellent character customization. When I talk about character customization, I am talking about the kind that matters - not in the unique snowflake aesthetic way but rather how players specialize and create their soldier and his qualities.

Planetside 2 Score: A+ PS2 has really gone above and beyond in this category. PS2 adds all new ways to customize characters from tweaking individual guns and vehicles to changing aesthetic appearance of the player. They nailed this fundamental well.

1.2.1 Certification System This greatness of this design cannot be overstated. The Cert system was basically a build-your-own- class system. The cert system gave players freedom to make their ideal soldier. It provided the first layer of player customization. Even better, it was a flexible customization players were not locked into any certification and could, over time, change into a completely different soldier. This is why Alts were (for the most part) not present nor required for the game. If a player did not like using a weapon or wanted to try something new for a while, he could switch and could ultimately experience everything with a single character. This leads to longevity to the character and the game, allowing the same identities to persist for years while constantly adapting and changing to the evolving tactics.

The cert system also provides a great platform for class balance. You dont need to balance classes in PlanetSide because there were no classes. The only thing to tweak was the cert cost of an item or vehicle, which translated directly into the possible combinations and prevalence of a given item or vehicle. When the game first started, dropping a cert was on a 24 hour timer. This was a little extreme as it required several real days for players to change out of a certification set they did not like. This was later shortened, and I think a 6 hour timer for veterans is fair and reasonable. Within a day or two a player could completely change his character, or simply swap out a cert temporarily for a few hours to accommodate his outfit/team needs. This is another important aspect of the cert system which should be carried into any game of this type. The cert system also has undergone grouping changes. For example, Light Scout didnt exist in the beginning, and overall cert costs for vehicles were reduced. This grouping was a pretty good thing as the number of vehicles increased. It is hard to say what the ideal groupings and costs should be, but grouping is a good idea and allows support-oriented certs to have options. Particularly the galaxy/liberator/lodestar combination was good, as a support player didnt eat up his points for vehicles he could rarely use. The cert system is one of the defining designs of PlanetSide that made it great. Players had freedom and flexibility. Balance was not in what they could do but rather how many options they had available to them. Planetside 2 Grade: A PS2 completely revised the cert system. The original cert system did not scale well as additional certs and points were added. To combat this, PS2 uses a class system which allows them to restrict which sets of certs are available to a player at any one point. While this initially received a lot of criticism from longtime players, it is generally accepted as a good move, as there were fundamental flaws with the original cert system which this new system addresses. Certs in PS2 also train in real time, and are permanently learned. Another benefit of choosing class is not having the need for a respec. 1.2.2 Implants While certifications augment a players options, Implants augment a players actual abilities. They grant extra abilities to cope with the battlefield. Combined with the certification choices, you get some uniqueness among players with different implants being chosen for different purposes. The main areas of implants are physical enhancement (personal shield, surge, melee booster, regeneration), information (adv targeting, audio amp), counter-information (silent run), and optical (darklight). PlanetSide did very little in the way of implant innovation, which is a big area for improvement in any game that wishes to build on its successful designs. Ill leave some of those ideas for a more appropriate section.

Planetside 2 Grade: A PS2 has a revised implant system. The revised system has implants being timed buffs similar to other MMO limited-duration enhancements. The implant system is used to customize players not by adding new abilities but by enhancing some of the fundamental characteristics of the soldier, such as weapon draw speed, or movement speed while aiming-down sights, or vehicle timers. This is another way to add customization. They no longer add special activateable abilities as these have been moved into the class system instead. This is a great adaptation of the PS1 system into the PS2 class model. From the look of things there are a great many implant options available to players which presents many more customization options than simple active abilities. It also presents a resource sink since the implants are timed, which is a good economic aspect of this system. 1.2.3 Loadouts Having custom gear loadouts was an awesome aspect of PlanetSide. Being able to save them and optimize however a player wishes and instantly recall them at an appropriate terminal is hardcore. There isnt much more to say about this, as it was one of the very well done aspects of the game and a very important part of customization. Players could be as efficient or wasteful as they like, and over the years I used a wide variety of loadout combinations. Inventory space, ammunition and gearing was superbly done in this fashion. Planetside 2 Grade: B PS2 does not have inventory, but it does still retain loadouts of different customizations. This is important in a game where customization is a backbone feature.

1.2.4 Vehicle Terminals Another thing that PS did well was Vehicle terminals and queues. In a lot of shooter games vehicles just spawn randomly and its first-come-first-serve. In PlanetSide, the only limit to the number of vehicles out

there is the number of players who have it certed and are rolling them. This is a fantastic thing. If a guy really wants to just drive a tank all night he can do that! Theres a vehicle term queue and line, but thats OK and part of the strategy and incentive not to lose your vehicle, but there isnt a limited supply. Being able to pull any vehicle you want whenever you want is a great mechanic in a game. It leads to great fun with friends always being able to do what they want and leads to dynamic strategy. Planetside 2 Grade: B Vehicle terminals appear to be identical in function and mechanics to PS1.

1.3 The Greatest Power is Teamwork (1+1=3)

This design principle is one of the greatest, but also the one most at risk because it is so far removed in recent times. In the early days of PlanetSide we were bombarded with the power of Teamwork. There were support players piloting galaxies to get their troops to the fight. There were Pilots doing escort. There were the indoor-armor MAX players who required non-MAX to repair them, open doors, and access terminals. Much of this is still in the game, but its deeper than that. In the early days the most powerful vehicles in the game were multi-manned vehicles. Tanks were kings, but they required a crew of two or more. They also required repairmen, but nothing was better at pushing a front. Lightnings were OK vehicles, but a Vanguard or Magrider was far more dangerous. This fit with a simple principle a vehicle that required two players to operate successfully should be more powerful than a vehicle that only requires one player to operate. It makes sense. It rewards teamwork with a 1+1=3 philosophy, giving advantage to outfits and factions that promote teamwork. This design has crumbled over the years of PlanetSide, and there are two reasons for it. First, as more cert points are given to players, more options are given to players. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it affects teamwork because you now need fewer people to accomplish a goal. With more cert points, every member of a team could be an Advanced Medical. Every member could be an Advanced Hacker. Every member a pilot. As the number of certification points expands, the differentiation between players decreases as more and more roles can be filled by a single player. The concept of tradeoff diminishes as everyone becomes a clone with very similar or identical certifications. In effect what happened was that the purpose of the certification system was eroded and its value diminished. The second reason this has crumbled is the increasing power of single-player vehicles. BFRs are the biggest example. Theyve been nerfed over the years, but the most obvious reason for them hurting the game is that a single player can occupy a vehicle that is very difficult to kill that could absorb or dish out a lot of firepower. This is disproportionate to multi-manned vehicles. Also, single-person aircraft have become far more significant over the history of PlanetSide. This is a topic I will cover more later, but for the scope of this section you just need to understand that as more vehicles and power become accessible to individuals, the

necessity AND power of teamwork diminishes. The game becomes more of a simple one-man army approach as opposed to a complex network of teamwork and cooperation. The way to enhance this design is two-fold. First, you increase the value of teamwork. You do this by making things which require teamwork more rewarding. A simple example is a two or three-man vehicle. Make them stronger. The other way to enhance the design is to make single-player powerful options more costly, while making teamwork-oriented activities cheaper. For example, single-player

aircraft could be made to cost more certification points to make it a clear tradeoff, or by having shorter timers on the multi-manned aircraft (this is just an example, Im not advocating ityet). Planetside 2 Grade: B+ This is another are that has changed, but not necessarily for the worse. The addition of the class system counteracts the teamwork problem of the one-manarmy which the PS1 certification system encountered as certs and points increased. By separating different abilities and preventing them from being used in the same class they move PS to promote more teamwork. Each class also has specific tactical and teamwork value that it brings to the table. By having these in different classes players are encouraged to play the strengths of their class and work together to achieve something. PS2 enforces specialization this is awesome! However, while it moved forwards in terms of enforced specialization for infantry, tanks became one-man vehicles, which does not really encourage teamwork and is why the grade isnt higher. This is hotly debated and the subject of several long threads on PSU. It is hard to tell how this will pan out, and it is possible that teamwork is encouraged by making the gunner a very effective spot in a tank but it will be a challenge for the PS2 dev team to balance this by making the driver significant in his firepower but also making gunners significantly valuable. The best hope here is balancing with resources, so players driving tanks would want gunners to get the most for their investment.

1.4 Persistent World

Many games claim to have a persistent world, and definitions will vary, but PlanetSide was one of the few that could boast a truly persistent world. While the landmasses themselves were static, the political landscape was ever-shifting, and youd rarely see exactly the same map situation. There are two aspects of the persistent world. First is variety. When the world is always changing, players have new experiences. New experiences keep the game stimulating the same situations over and over again make the game stale. Second is changing the world. While bases ever shift, a single player or group of players can change the landscape and set in motion events that would influence hours to come. This gives a sense of accomplishment and purpose beyond simply having good fights. The persistent world and its many strategic areas of interest also opened the door for many different play styles, from the Zergling to the quick responder to the saboteur, and countless others. Without the persistent world, this variety of choices would not be possible. The key reason for this is that throughout PlanetSide is a theme of having multiple strategic options, from a global scale to a continental scale even to a single base. In all of these contexts there are multiple tactical options, and it is the player that must decide what their objective is, where to go, how to get there, and what to do to achieve it. Planetside 2 Grade: A+

There have been exciting improvements in the persistent world, the most impressive of which is the day-night cycle, which helps make the world come alive as well as create tactical differences in the battles, helping each battle be a little different and improve variety. Additionally the invention of the territory control system fundamentally changes Planetside and makes territory other than facilities matter. Because of this we will see fighting over more parts of the world which will be both exciting, interesting, and different, keeping the game fresh.

1.4.1 Conquerable Bases The bases provide the heart of the persistent world - a focal point of advancement, a cool environment to do battle, and a tangible accomplishment. Beyond that they hold strategic value, both locally and for the entire continent. Each base by itself is a strategic option for the continent, providing players with options on where to go and what to do. Each base having a specific benefit gave it additional strategic value, as well as different layouts which were good for variety. Variety = different tactics and diversity in battles. Planetside 2 Grade: AFacilities in PS2 have been improved, as well as adding smaller outposts. This is improved with territories to capture as opposed to just the facilities. However at this time the facilities do not seem to have any particular value other than the territory capture, and the resource denial capabilities of the old system are not well represented in the new. Overall good improvements here, may be better as we see more of the game.

1.4.2 Multiple Base Strategic Points Bases arent simply little flags that are taken they have many points of interest, all of which are destructible. Spawn room, Control Center, Vehicle Terminals, Equipment Terminals, NTU Silo, Power Generator, and others. The combination of multiple strategic points with destructibility is pure genius. While some players dislike the strategy of taking out generators, it was a viable alternative to knocking out the spawn tubes of a hot base, and outside major assaults it was used to disable the lattice connection to other bases. It was a great target for stealthy types and it was another strategic location for defenders to watch. Those that didnt respect its presence were kicked out of their base. The key design as mentioned above is that the points of interest in the base provide tactical options for a given battle and strategic options for an entire continent. Planetside 2 Grade: AThe capture points of the facility have been divided up into 5-7 control points, which spreads out the combat around the facility area and adding specific functions to each capture point, such as controlling shields, or turrets, or the spawn room, has been discussed. These are significant improvements, though we have yet to see the capture benefits for each control point. The equivalent of the generator drop of PS1 is also gone, which holds back the grade.

1.4.3 Lattice System The lattice system was initially created to drive conflict from all over a continent to a handful of bases. Later it was expanded as the medium by which base benefits connect. This added a whole new layer of strategy to the game, not only creating a front, but also making knocking out power at strategic

locations behind the main front a viable and effective tactic. It also influenced decisions on where to attack, as obviously some bases were more valuable than others. It was a brilliant innovation that made continental combat meaningful. Using the lattice well meant a significant strategic advantage. Even without either side using the lattice it focused the mindless masses into a predictable conflict which gave many players good fights and solid entertainment. So whether it was used or not, its an innovation that brought depth and fun to the game. Planetside 2 Grade: A The lattice has been completely replaced by a territory control and influence system which encourages fighting over all territories, not simply from base-to-base. The influence system is the PS2 equivalent of the lattice and governs capture mechanics and has additional benefits and effects which have yet to be fully seen. Grade may improve as these other mechanics are revealed, as the ability to sever lattice for resource denial has been removed. There may be a similar replacement using Influence. Lots of potential with this system.

1.4.4 Warp gates Warp gates bridged continental warfare to global warfare. Much like how the lattice determined which bases could be attacked, warp gates determined which continents could be attacked. By and large the best innovation PS saw was broadcast warp gates. The broadcast warp gates allowed more fluid travel, but more importantly they brought variety to the game. As a player I had hoped for a long time that SOE would capitalize on Warp gates by mixing it up every few months so strategies and battles did not become too repetitive. More on that in the next chapter. Planetside 2 Grade: AWarp Gates have changed significantly in PS2. Instead of strategic links they are basically little sanctuaries that link to each other as a means of going to other continent. This is an improvement for pacing, as it was often difficult to attack a continent from just a warpgate since it required one to go to sanctuary to get the vehicles. PS2 is like the warpgate combined with sanctuary without the loading screen. This will facilitate better invasions and help allow an empire to compete. The downside is that warp gates as strategic elements is gone. However there are ways to make it more dynamic should additional continents be added post-launch. The game could evolve to make more use of these. For now the gates will speed up the gameplay and aid attackers with little or no territory.

1.4.5 Three Factions Having three factions and not just two added a lot of dynamics to the game. Possibly more importantly it added variety, for both what theme a player could play as, but also the types of enemies the player plays against. The NC/VS/TR dynamic was quite good and made for a great game. Dawn of War II also

featured 4 armies right from the start. This variety in choice and in opponents leads to rich games. Three is a good number of factions, though as I describe later its really the minimum. Planetside 2 Grade: A The same factions are back with revised dynamic. It worked wonderfully in PS1 so can only mean good things for PS2. Giving this an improved grade due to all of the additional stylistic and cultural effort put into making the empires distinct and come alive.

1.5 The Grief System

The Grief system was a fantastic design. It punished griefers, forced fire discipline, and allowed the disciplined soldier to punish the occasional asshat. It was a 1000point system where you got points for friendly-fire damage. However, it was a nonlinear system with a non-linear decay. The most important design was that the current grief level was taken into account when it came to decay and grief points awarded. Grief point gain was gated by both current grief score and recent grief activity. Grief point decay was also gated by grief score and recent grief activity. So players who were careful with their shots received few grief points for accidental hits because their grief score indicated that such actions are unusual and so the system was forgiving. Players that frequently shot friendlies would have a much higher score, would get more points, and would have that score decay slower. So a players grief point score was pretty damn accurate in representing their grief activity. Players that were disciplined also were rewarded with the opportunity to grief the occasional asshat and not get many points for it. It was a good system because allowing players to punish douchebags on their own team is a good thing to help keep them in line. It did have a few problems. Guns which fired many shots but did little damage per shot racked up the recent grief activity and could quickly create grief. Slow moving weapons were more grief prone because while at the time of the shot it was a good shot, a friendly could move into the path of the projectile before it reaches its destination (not uncommon in laggy or big fights). Plasma grenades, which had a burning effect, would quickly rack up grief because it scored so many frequent occurrences. Such weapons need to have special grief exceptions so you only pay the grief penalty once, not each time the

same hit applies damage. Slow firing weapons or weapons that do small amounts of damage per-hit should be a bit more forgiving as well. On the converse, weapons which hit very hard were the griefer weapons of choice, because they could kill a friendly with few grief hits. The Jackhammer was a great grief weapon, as was a tank cannon or bomb, as these will often kill in few hits, allowing griefing with little grief gain. These are relatively minor problems however, and the system can easily be tweaked to account for it For example, each weapon or damage type could have a grief point modifier, so hard-hitting weapons punish more and weak hitting or slow weapons punish less to compensate. Another simple solution would be to throttle the grief gain much like networks throttle packets. So grief gained over 3 seconds counted the same amount. Friendly Fire is important to a MMOFPS. First, it cuts back on spam weapons, because spamming will likely hit friendlies and amass grief quickly. It also adds a healthy amount of realism. Now Im not one of those realism freaks in games, but fire discipline is an important skill for shooters and one of the skills that separates the good from the scrubs. Nobody likes games where people just spam weapons. Friendly fire curbs that and dramatically changes the game in a good way. The typical reason games dont have friendly fire is the griefing potential. In PlanetSide there were occasional TK problems, but by and large the grief system worked very well to allow friendly fire but also quickly punish those who abused it or those who were careless. It made players better and the overall experience better. The Grief System and the friendly fire it allowed were very positive to PlanetSide, and the best implementation of Friendly Fire Ive seen in a game ever. A PlanetSide sequel must absolutely have it. Planetside 2 Grade: B We know friendly fire is in the game, which instantly puts its scoring to B. The only question is how friendly fire is punished/discouraged and how it impacts stats. These are simply unknown. This grade could change with more information.

1.6 Paper-Rock-Scissors Design

Also known as Roles and Balance. R-P-S design is the core of any strategy game and vital to what made PS great. The concept of Rock-Paper-Scissors is quite simply hard counters. Certain vehicles and weapons are better at destroying some targets over others. This is a core strategy concept present in every successful strategy game from Civilization to Starcraft. Some units counter other units; it is the basis upon which tactics, teamwork, and strategy are based. To give some obvious PlanetSide examples: A jackhammer (or any HA) are hard counters to infantry. Mosquitoes are hard counters to infantry. Tanks are hard counters to vehicles and infantry (and are themselves vehicles).

Wasps are hard counters to aircraft.

This is called a role. AA in all its forms is also a role. Players over the years often complained about certain roles (notably AA) largely because they dont want hard counters to their preferred play style to exist. They like being the top of the foodchain and gravitate to the most efficient killing machines/weapons. Typically theyre players in mosquitoes with heavy assault weapons, which puts them in a position to kill most every vehicle and unit in the game except of course AA. It isnt a

coincidence that AA is what they cry about. While using hard counters to infantry, they complain about hard counters to aircraft. Not to complain about these players they care about the game and mean well, but I do not believe they understand the true dynamics and balance of PlanetSide. Most likely they want to see things exist in less-extreme ways. (Air Balance is a key topic and along with heavy assault were the two biggest debates of PS. Ill cover each further down in their respective sections.) A constructive way to view hard counters is to see them as an opportunity for a great player to excel in a difficult environment. A really good player will overcome the challenges and still come out on top, in spite of the disadvantage. Sticking to the core concepts that made PS great will make a PS successor great. Rock-PaperScissors design (hard counters & roles) are a vital part of that. Below is a comment from Physed, one of my longtime outfit-mates and a longtime PS player: The reason I think p/r/s balance makes sense is because this is a team oriented game. It's not balanced for one guy in a mosquito going up against one guy in an AA max. The game is all about a squad of 5-10 (or more) people bringing a variety of weapons/vehicles to overcome an enemy that could potentially throw a variety of weapons and vehicles back at them. PS DEVOLVED into the one-man-army mossie pilot/grunt game. While I had my fun playing that (mostly because that's all that was left), it was not PS at its best. He put it very well. PS must stick to its roots. The game that is PS now is not the game it once was and not PS in its best form. However, there are still lessons to be learned from it. Planetside 2 Grade: A The same core dynamic exists with MAX, Infantry both Light and Heavy, Infiltrators, tanks, and aircraft. The inclusion of customizable vehicles does further increase this, as it allows players to adjust to the situation and adapt by enhancing their AA, AV, or AI as necessary. All the core elements of P/R/S gameplay is retained as PS2 is a game of hard counters. This is improved over PS1 as more vehicles are capable of customizing to adapt to the situation. This makes more vehicles viable and allows for more diversity and tactical options. There are a lot more viable vehicle and infantry combinations.

1.7 Command Rank

I list this last, but it was certainly not least. Command Rank was a novel concept and for the most part, pretty well done. Setting Waypoints, having a battlefield scanner showing friendly troop deployments (and nearby hostiles), and having the ability to draw battle strategy on the map for the squad to see were all great

additions to the game. I loved being able to illustrate how I was to do a bombing run or where I wanted my squad to go in the early days of PS. After a while it became second nature and I didnt need to, but it had its value from time to time and especially early. The only challenge with Command Rank was that it didnt scale well. As the game progressed youd get more and more high CR players. Nothing kept the chain-ofcommand tight and small. This is something to really consider well and get right. It is a fantastic idea and should definitely make a return. How its designed, how CR5s exist, etc should all be re-evaluated, but the core concept and design of Command Rank was very good. I particularly liked waypoints & the ability to draw on the map. For longtime vets it didnt have much use since they already knew their tactics, but early on w/ unfamiliar squad mates it was a useful tool. Planetside 2 Scores: N/A We know little of PS2s command rank at this time. It appears to have adopted a design similar to the missions idea presented below, so it looks promising but we dont know enough to give it a scoring. There are also squad leader certs in PS2 whose names resemble the old CR1-5, providing another way to improve ones leadership skills within the cert model.

1.7.1 Command Rank 5 nd I have a lot of experience with Command rank. As stated before I was the 2 CR5 on Emerald and a longtime player in the first few years of PS. I saw the evolution. At first players knew each other because we helped take bases together and cooperated with squads. When there were only 10 of us it was a tight group and things went well. When it became 20 things were still good with the odd bad apple. When it was 40 we still had strong coordination and started using CR abilities and comms as a communication chain. A few years later it was just a mash-up of kids and people who only wanted CR5 to abuse, spam or just use the Orbital Strike ability. There was no way to mark good CR5s, but even if you could mark CR5s the best way to stay a CR5 would be to keep a low profile or do what made people happy (as opposed to doing the correct thing from a strategic perspective). It would be a political position, not a strategic one. So marking CR5s would not lead to a good result in the spirit of the role. Theres a really simple solution to CR5s perpetually growing that is natural and in the spirit of the game - upkeep. You have to keep getting command xp to maintain CR5. You need to keep leading squads, keep taking/defending bases, keep being useful to your empire, and keep getting out there doing what commanders do. This has several great benefits. 1) You could put a natural limit on the number of active CR5s at any one time. The formula is simple average amount of command xp generated per week (average number of base captures/resecures) divided by upkeep cost per CR5. Thats the maximum number of CR5s possible for a faction. You can up command rank or lower upkeep cost to change that number. 2) It stops the phenomena where once a commander gets CR5 he stops leading squads and passes it off to another outfit member who then gets CR5 and so on and so forth. It stops that ever- growing progression where CR5 is just another grind. 3) The people frequently leading squads & platoons are the ones that are CR5s. This means that you dont end up with players that are armchair generals the people you coordinate with on command chat have real influence over squads and platoons. Command rank would be good like it was in the old days when the first CR5s did so by having good squads and they coordinated with each other to achieve objectives. If you have a good squad who does the right things and goes to the right places frequently you can be a CR5. If you dont then what business do you have being a CR5? None, IMO. I would advise having an upkeep cost based on played time rather than real time so CR5s dont have to constantly worry about making that quota every week but rather they could do it at the pace at which they play the game. They should also be able to store up a sizeable amount of command exp. You could also make it decay over played time instead of real-time. As long as a commander makes enough command rank to overcome the decay rate then they retain CR5, or CR5

abilities. Its an easy system to tweak.

You could also help avoid the empire-hop problem by having such command rank decay regardless of which character/faction you are playing. So it would be hard to maintain CR5 across two factions. The goal here is for the CR5s to be loyal to their faction, not to themselves. Additionally some work could be done to improve the lower command-ranks and make them more useful. CR4s for example should be much higher in number than CR5s and be able to relay intelligence to the CR5s. The same is true for CR1s, 2s and 3s. Let them pass up the chain of information. If you add decay algorithms to all command ranks then the set of commanders at all levels is always dynamic, but preserves a sort of balance. It will take some tweaking of the numbers to get right. Planetside 2 Scores: N/A As above, not enough information yet. We do know there will be no CR5 global chat and missions will be the means by which commanders encourage troops to go after specific objectives. When we know more about this system it can be graded.

2. Meta-Game and Global Strategy

I said before that I believe I am one of the foremost experts on this, and so my document would not be complete without detailing the meta-game so it could be understood by creators of future PlanetSide- like games. It should be noted that my perspective on the meta-game was from the Emerald Server and the NC faction. My perspective is also primarily from the first two years of PlanetSide, though I played it in later years and saw few changes. Those disclaimers aside, I will start with the history and how it evolved. I once wrote a long Global Strategy document (a companion to my Continental Strategy, linked below). I never ended up posting that one on the PS forums since I did not want to benefit my opponents. It is a shame though; I wish I could reference it here. Planetside 2 Scores: F PS2 effectively kills global strategy and the metagame by having no relationship between continents or reasons to fight on particular continents. Particular continents and configurations of those continents have no meaning beyond the local battle on the continent. This is not particularly a bad thing, as the global strategy metagame did add some undesirable side effects. The game is dumbed down, but it will have less downtime. It is also worth noting that with only 3 continents at release there is little room for a rich global strategy model, so it may be that this aspect of the game was postponed until they had more continents to work with. With 3 continents they cant afford to have any part of them inaccessible to players, which is what the PS1 system would do. While the score is F it is purely because this good aspect of PS1 is missing from

PS2. While I personally lived this aspect of the game it doesnt make much sense with only 3 continents. As more are released and they have more land to work with I would expect some more metagame and global strategy to return to PS2 in some form or another as a way of enriching the game.

2.1 A Brief History

When PS first released, there were no commanders, the Lattice system was new, cert points were low, and on the whole, vehicles were relatively rare. Vehicles also had a 10 minute timer, meaning a player could not pull another vehicle for 10 minutes after he pulled a previous one. This meant people tended to not be careless with their tanks and aircraft. Combat was largely huge footzergs moving from tower to base, with scattered tanks, aircraft, and AMS providing support. There was a simple formula for taking bases tanks. Tanks in the early days had powerful cannons, and even nearmisses could be fatal to multiple infantry. They were massive infantry support weapons and a few tanks could clear a courtyard and pave the way for the infantry to progress. Aircraft were relatively rare because repair & rearm pads did not exist and pilots had to manually repair & rearm their gunships. In this world mechanized infantry reigned supreme grunts that moved around in tanks or assault buggies using the vehicle weaponry to clear their path and push back the enemy into the base or tower. Coordinated raids did not exist, as there were few or no CR5s to organize them. Continental locking did not work and so it was not a significant factor. For several months continental invasions were done by random squads or individuals hacking bases. After one base was taken, more and more players would flood to it looking for a fight.

After a few CR5s hit the field, organization and the meta-game started to take place. It began with simple Intel, or requests to attack specific bases. Some CR5s used Mosquitoes in their intended scout role, before they were killing machines. Broadcast warp gates did not exist, so mosquitoes were used to quickly fly to hacked bases to see if it was a small threat or a large threat. The intel would be relayed and other CR5s would rally the troops and mount an appropriate response. The concept of Home Continents was born. These were the continents that were statically linked to each empires sanctuary. These were the continents that were most easily accessible by an empire and the ones which they can always attack. They were also the gateway to further conquest. An empire could not push out into another empire without first securing the gate links by securing the home continents. This necessity, combined with the typical unorganized method by which continents were attacked by small squads taking a single base led to rapid response. Smaller outfits learned that they could get a small-scale fight by responding to these hacks on otherwise secure continents. In doing so they could resecure the hack and prevent an invasion as the main zerg of the enemy could not invade without a foothold. Rapid response was important for the main forces to advance. Smaller teams resecuring the random hacks around the globe kept the flanks secure and allowed most PlanetSide players to enjoy a good fight at the front. Rapid response of home continents progressed to further evolution of tactics. In order to successfully break into a continent more force was required because small squads were unreliable. From this necessity raids were born and became more prominent. Instead of letting small random hacks to break open a base, CR5s of all empires began to organize full-scale invasions meant to brute-force their way into a continent. They would send out a call and form up as many players as possible (often this was after the successful capture of a continent, or the complete expulsion from one), then choose a target and invade it. The mass of attackers was too much for rapid response teams to handle and so they had to escalate their own presence, call in additional response teams, or more commonly send out a global call for additional support. For this reason the Sanctuary posed an important role in PlanetSide it was a staging area for invasion of any continent. In the era of rapid response if an enemy wished to crack open a continent they had to bring extreme force, lots of aircraft and vehicles, and the manpower to hold the hack against an escalated defense force with all the power and resources of the entire continent at their back. Sanc offered a place where the empire could gather, pull vehicles and prepare for a fullscale invasion. To prevent advance warning due to empire-hoppers spying or alts on accounts the target of invasions was usually not called until the last minute. Announcing ahead of time often had 1 of 2 results: 1) An enemy player on an alt listening in got advanced warning and alerted his side. 2) Players on the same team would be impatient and would advance ahead of the main force before it was fully assembled. They would take towers and put the hack on the base before it could be properly secured. This was

more than enough for good responders to delay or even prevent the invasion outright by building up a decent defense force.

Either way disclosure often resulted in a failed invasion. Still, sanctuary gave it an opportunity for success and it often worked. 2.1.1 A Deep-Dive into Amerish-Searhus-Solsar I wrote a post years ago explaining the Amerish-Searhus-Solsar and why we chose it since the broadcast warp gate patch. You can read all about it here: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/preList.m? topic_id=1300000528&post_id=1300000528 That post is some pretty good insight into my global strategy thinking and why I convinced the rest of NC CR5s to adopt that doctrine. It was sound and led to the NC Golden Age. Classic bit of history there.

2.2 Global Strategy

For those that chose to play the meta-game of global strategy, the goal was to capture as much territory as possible and provide their empire with as many victories as possible. However, with two enemies this was not always possible. Invasions were predictable. For example, if the Terran Republic was finishing up the conquest of a continent, they would obviously be moving to another one. There was a short list of options of where they could attack, and so with a little logical thinking an opposing CR5 could anticipate the attack, watch for it, and prepare a defense. The rub was that manpower is finite and ever-changing. An empire only had so many soldiers to attack, and often they could only afford to pop lock 1-3 continents at a time. Players engaged in a fight did not want to leave it for another fight why give up a good thing for a chance at the same thing? CR5s had to make decisions on which continents to primary or try to keep soldiers in, and which continents to pull out. The CR5s of other empires knew this, and so it became common practice to double-team an opponent. This double teaming was not intentional by any means, but it was the best way to gain ground and get good position on an enemy. The strategy is simple they guarantee success by attacking an over-stretched enemy. They cannot possibly defend against two empires and if they are already engaged their response will likely be slow which allowed significant gains on a continent to be made before pop lock was reached. Additionally, attacking an enemys home continent often provoked a more serious response as home continents were valued over non-home continents. So if TR were engaged on a VS home continent, and NC attacked TR, it was likely that TR would re-route forces away from the VS fight to repel the NC attack, locking the NC and TR in a fight on the TR home continent, allowing the VS a chance to push back. On the other hand, if the NC attacked another VS continent they would likely capture it as the VS would not leave their existing battle with TR. Which was the wise option for the NC CR5s to attack? The VS. The desire to capture more land and glory for the empire eventually degraded into a single goal avoid the double-team. By avoiding being double-teamed an empire

achieved domination. But the more territory captured increased the chance of the double-team. It was inevitable, but good placement of forces could limit the damage of the double team, or delay it. This was something that was good for the typical grunt, even though they often hated the globals CR5s would send out to reroute forces. They

didnt want to leave their fight, but they didnt understand that the reason they were being re-routed was to avoid being in a situation where they are losing on all fronts. Losing isnt fun, so it was a tradeoff short term reroute and loss in exchange for more victories long-term. Some players and outfits understood this; others only understood instant-gratification, so CR5s became polarizing figures. To complicate things, there were often disagreements among CR5s about what the right thing to do was. What is the right target? What will get more success? Some didnt care about the meta-game and became advocates for the Good Fight. These CR5s represented the player base that just wanted a battle anywhere and didnt care about the consequences or victory. They saw any attempt to re-route forces as a threat to the Good Fight and so they opposed it. This resulted in a lot of CR5 bickering and conflict, and many CR5s were polarizing figures some people hated them, some people loved them. I was a particularly polarizing figure. I had many players who enjoyed my leadership and many who did not. It all comes down to whether the player cared about the big picture or the current fight. Theres no wrong answer, as every player has their decisions and goals for playing the game. The real problem was that the evolution of the game resulted in favoring doubleteaming an opponent as opposed to fair engagement. Because the best way to defend against a double team was to consolidate forces to the most defensible position this created friction in the CR5 camps the good fight crew was the party of no and didnt want to change what they were doing, even if it meant the empire would be down to 1 base and half the population log or switch factions. This caused infighting when those who tried to put the empire in a good position to recover from the double team clashed with those that desired to do nothing more than sit in their flail and rack up kills at a hot base. I believe that ultimately game situation conflicted with human nature. Had there not been a tendency to double team wed have been in a much better position. This may also be a phenomenon that occurred primarily on Emerald due to how quickly the tactics advanced in the meta-game early in the games release. This sparked an arms race of tactics and meta- game strategy over the first two years of PS that made it a very different culture and tactical atmosphere than other servers. Markov and other players were not experienced with it and when the first server merges occurred I remember the Konreid players took a little while to adjust to it. We also called Markov Farmkov for a while because the tactics in genera lagged behind that of Emerald and result in easy kills. This changed over a few years as the basic game tactics and player base homogenized. Point being that not all servers advance in tactics at the same pace, and depending on the player dynamics some cultures can progress rapidly and result in servers being at different political and strategic dispositions. It also means that how the game tactics will evolve at release is such a complex system that it will likely not emerge through Beta testing alone and the developers should plan to adjust to it post-release. But I digress. The double-team happened because it is easier to defend than to attack so the

attacker always needed an advantage, outplay the defender, or exploit the zerg mentality of players or other social psychology phenomenon. The easiest way to get an advantage was to fight an enemy that could not match their numbers. As long as the number of empires was at three, the tendency to double-team would prevail. This is the main reason I am an advocate for 4 empires a topic I will discuss later. The 3 empire design,

assuming equal population distribution does not lead to good gameplay at the macro level. However the real problem with 3 empires is that the populations were simply not big enough to be able to pop lock 4-5 continents. Were that the case 3 empires could work, but that would require likely smaller population limits than we had and more players on the server. Barring that, a real 4
th

empire would help alleviate the problem in the average case.

I played countless nights of cat-and-mouse, trying to get my team to avoid the double team while attacking targets that were easy for us to defend in the future. When Broadcast Warp gates came into effect, I devised the ASS (Amerish-SolsarSearhus) strategy. The way these three continents linked to each other was very beneficial to defenders, creating a triangle that was hard to crack and easy to push out from. These continents connected to each other and the external connections were mostly bio-labs - the easiest base for a defender to recapture due to the generator on the roof and a lack of a tech plant for advanced vehicles and increased production. Using this strategy, The New Conglomerate was able to control 40-45% of world territory consistently for months by holding these three continents and prioritizing their defense. Eventually the triangle was lost to the VS who then enjoyed its benefits for some time. Later continental lock benefits came into play. Each empire had 2 home continents, which, if taken, would provide vehicle and weapon unlocks of that empire to the conquerors. The other 4 continents each had a unique base-benefit they would apply to all bases they own. Searhus had the bio-lab benefit, a particularly weak benefit. Ishundar had the amp station, a solid benefit but a difficult-to-capture continent due to its isolated base layout. Cyssor gave a vehicle armor bonus, making the vehicles stronger of the empire that held the continent. Oshur had the Repair benefit easily the best and most impactful benefit. This was a great idea that added additional value to each continent; however it was also obviously lopsided. For one, the home continent benefits provided no incentive to the owners of those continents, and an enemy must capture BOTH of the continents to achieve the lock benefit. Another problem was the obvious lopsidedness in the benefits. A bio lab benefit is mostly worthless, as bio labs are the most common base in the game and the least impactful to a battle. The dropship center, being only one on any given continent, became the most valuable base, and the dropship continental lock benefit is far and away the most impactful, especially on continents that did not have dropship centers (the battle islands), and for invading continents. The TR recognized this and has held it consistently for a long time. There are other factors complicating this, such as the VS not liking battle islands (due to not being able to use their best weapon there), and the NC having bad positioning for invading it (which could be solved by rotating lattice links).

Planetside 2 Scores: F While not many details have been revealed, we do know there will only be 3 continents. It is my concern that without a good dynamic to shift around different

continents that battles will get stale and lack any real strategic impact. I wrote a topic in PSUs Idea Vault describing how we could add continental value to the game with multiple continents and how each continent could have its own unique value to the empires. You can read it here: http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36627 In addition to unique benefits/playstyles on continents, they could also add different capture mechanics within a continent, such as DAoCs relics. It could be as simple as the empire with the most territory gets the benefit, encouraging them to take and maintain dominance and encouraging the other two empires to naturally counter a dominant empire.

2.3 The Fourth Empire

Players often refer to the 4 empire as the group of players that switch sides when it goes bad for the side they are playing. Part of the problem here is that prior to server-merges, such switching was not possible. The 4 empire problem did not exist before the merges because that required multiple accounts and by far the typical player only had one. After server-merges, players could play on two or more sides, meaning that if the side they were playing got double-teamed and was consistently losing, they would simply switch to one of the other two that did not have that problem. This made things even worse for the side that was doubleteamed and further increased the value of CR5s who could avoid it.
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This is a complex problem - if you give players the option to switch sides when the going gets tough, many will do it and its not healthy for the game. It was created when server merges happened, as you had to allow access to both characters players had on both servers. It was a necessary evil given the need for the merges (which boosted pop and did help revitalize the game for a time). The solution was to have a timer between switches. The problem was it was a 24 hour timer between switches, so a player could literally do it every day. I dont have a good solution to this, and I think its best to avoid that situation to begin with, but if you have to allow two characters on different factions then the switching needs to be more restrictive to prevent fair-weather players from upsetting the balance of the game. Players that absolutely want to do this can simply buy a second account, and nothing can prevent that, but most players wont do that, and the majority is what design needs to focus on. I would simply recommend extending the timer of the switching to 36 hours, which means most players could do it every other day, making daily switching far less common. Even longer timers would help out more, but if the game was better managed, marketed, and more successful this wouldnt be much of a problem, as the servers wouldnt need to be merged and each server could remain exclusive. Ideally there shouldnt be switching of factions or it should be rare. Having a faction that you choose and keeping it brings solidarity and loyalty to the faction. Its good for the culture. People begin to identify with their faction and its culture. When you can switch when the going gets tough that opportunity is lost; faction loyalty dies. Better incentive bonuses would also help the empire-hopping problem. Current incentives are pretty piss poor and dont provide nearly enough incentive for an empire to face a 2:1 or worse disadvantage. I would strongly advise against giving combat advantages to lower populations. The main reason is because people learn their weapons and what it takes to kill someone or thing. Changing advantages puts that out of whack and makes the game seem more random as opposed to making a skilled decision and calculated attacks that do just enough damage to kill. Other ways to do incentives would be to give temporary free cert points that you could use for a few hours, or a bonus implant or something like that. Those things give players more options and can help make up for a lack of diversity due to smaller population. In effect incentives like temporary cert points lead you to helping fill niches easily. Players that want to do more frequently would favor a low population side. Temp cert points would also be particularly beneficial to low rank players. It would also help leveling up on that low population faction which would help permanently solve the problem. Planetside 2 Scores: C PS2 is a Free-to-Play Game, which while it has its own merits, will potentially make faction hopping worse. It would be easy for anyone to maintain two characters and level both up in real-time with the cert system. The only thing not shared would be things purchased with station cash, which is promised will offer no real gameplay advantage. So there is nothing to lose in having multiple accounts. In fact, there is nothing to lose in having 3 accounts, one for each faction, and then hopping to

whichever one is favorable. The only upside is that perhaps a lot of players wont do this. The GDC video revealed a place in the login for incentives for each empire, so it could be they plan to do something to discourage people from piling on a winning empire. Likewise, the resource model also factors population into how many resources each player gets. Presumably this means the more people there are, the fewer each one gets. That could be incentive to not jump ship to the winning side. It should also be noted that the 4th empire will inherently be a problem with a freeto-play business model. Theres no barrier to entry and therefore no barrier to enjoy all three empires. It isnt necessarily a bad thing, but one thing that was strong in PS1 and gave it character was the empire loyalty. The developers are constantly pushing faction loyalty. Perhaps they can compensate and discourage the 4th empire by promoting more faction loyalty activites, such as using ESports casters and having empire contests for bragging rights and perhaps non-gameplay altering perks. If these events are measured over time and individual contributations are based on time spent or territory captured then it might help encourage players to stick with one empire, but not explicitly prohibit them from enjoying all aspects of the game. This is a tricky problem and I expect carrots rather than sticks will achieve the desired result. The faction loyalty stuff that the dev team is promoting is great for the game.

2.4 CR5 Missions

A great concept idea that Hedron of KAAOS had that I refined with him was Missions that a CR5 could set up. Sort of like quests from a traditional MMO, these would be player-created objectives built from pre-defined types. CR5s are allowed X number of missions. Any player in the empire can go at any given time and look at the posted missions, see who has signed up for those missions, create a squad for a mission, or join an existing squad.

This is a step up from a CR5 globalling Hey we need an ANT to Iva!! Instead the CR5 could post a mission to get an ANT to Iva, and then players could see that mission and sign up for it and see who all is bringing an ANT. Signing up gives xp bonuses to thats the incentive to do it. The rewards for completing a mission are two-fold. For a squad leader doing the mission, they get a command bonus. For squad members they get BEP bonuses. Example missions: Attack a base Defend a base Resecure a base Repair a generator Destroy a generator Capture a tower Bring an AMS to a location Bring a tank to a location and get X kills with it Bring AA to a location and get X kills with Bring an ANT to a base Bring a Lodestar to an area and repair X number of vehicles with it Lock a cave CE an area

There are many possibilities. The key points with this is that they have distinct victory conditions and certain missions are worth more value than others (taking a base is worth more than taking a tower). Missions should have reward stats as well. Players who complete lots of missions could get awards for it, and the success rate can also be viewable by the CR5 so they can get some idea if the players doing their missions will succeed. Getting credit for missions is the real trick here. If a player has signed up to repair a base, for example, and he is in the SOI of the base when it is repaired then it is considered a successful mission. Other missions might have distinct success criteria, such as getting an ant, filling it, and deploying it at the target destination. If the mission is to bring a tank to a location then you need to bring a tank and get a certain number of kills in the area of the waypoint. The idea overall has some kinks to work out but the important part is understanding the concepts of this idea and where it can go. Planetside 2 Scores: A This idea of missions is one that PS2 is implementing and was mentioned early on. Missions squad leaders can create and ultimately faction leaders is the design intent from what we understand, and that fits nicely into this idea. It is exciting to see how PS2 will implement missions from outfits, squads, and empires but I like what I see here. Another important aspect that goes above and beyond with this idea is that the

faction itself can prescribe missions. This is a fantastic way for the devs to help funnel players to fights and create conflict by giving two (or three) factions opposing missions that push players together. Likewise it could be used to help break up large lagfest zergs and spread out the fight by creating missions away from an overloaded front. They can also use this to help avoid double-teaming on a low population enemy by giving the higher population factions missions to fight each other. Lots of potential here, great ideas.

2.4.1 Mission Creation A CR5 is limited in the number of missions they can create. One large mission (attack/defend/resecure a base) and two small, support-oriented missions (such as repairing a base, bringing up an ams, or an ANT).

To encourage CR5s to create good missions, when the mission is successfully completed the CR5 will get Command Experience. If the idea of upkeep was taken from section 1.7 above, then this should be a worthwhile benefit to creating good missions. A CR5 will maximize his command experience by setting good missions. As a result, the right things will get done on a continent and the front will advance. The missions are created by right-clicking locations on a map and choosing a drop down, much like one might set a waypoint. Instead they create a mission. CR5s can recall a mission at any time. Missions that are no longer applicable are automatically revoked (for example, a mission to repair a base will be removed if the base gets repaired). An example mission set a CR5 might have: (major) Attack Anu (minor) Bring AMS to X location (waypoint near Anu) (minor) Repair generator at Gwyddion

Since the number of CR5s is limited due to the upkeep described in 1.7, there should always be a healthy number of missions but not too many. If a CR5 already has specified a mission another CR5 cannot specify the same one (avoids spam). First-come-first-serve. 2.4.2 Mission Listing A player can only sign up for one mission at a time. Once created, the list of missions would be easily accessible by any player anywhere. The mission listing should be filterable, including filter-by- certifications, so even new players could see missions that they could accomplish. Players viewing the list should be able to see other players signed up for the mission. Other mission list options should include creating or joining squads that have signed up for a mission. For example, when a player looks at the mission list, one option is to sign-up for the mission. Another option is to create a squad for the mission and then have your squad listed in the mission list. Other players can then select to join your squad to complete the mission. A key point here is to allow new players a guide on how to get involved and what they should be doing (and reward them for doing so). Theres a huge potential for missions in Planetside, and it helps new players, commanders, and helps make progress happen. It will also replace the problem of just globalling for things to happen. Theres no attribution- no person saying yes Ill go do that! and no way for people to know who is responding to those missions. But new players do enjoy getting some direction, so the missions idea is one that will help new players learn the game as well as progress the metagame.

2.5 Meta-Game Improvements

The Meta-Game is my bread and butter and so here I have a fair amount of thought. The key focus around Meta-Game improvements is counteracting the Double-Team incentives and behavior and keeping things new and fresh for PlanetSide Players. Variety is good and nothing is as boring as having the same fight in the same base from the same direction with the same enemy every night. 2.5.1 CR5-Gifted Incentives The missions idea in 2.4 may be sufficient to not require this improvement, but this is intended to be more of a continent-wide approach to incentives, while missions are intra-continent. While encouraging conflict and territorial rewards for successful conflict is a good thing, the most effective means of achieving it is attacking an empire that is already engaged in a battle, particularly a defensive one. The defending empire is getting hit on all sides, sometimes even sandwiched and losing on all fronts because it has to splitting its defense even just a little between the two gives the opposing empires an advantage. The result of this crappy situation in prime time was often an empire-hop. The defenders would switch to their characters on one of the opposing two empires, putting the defending empire in an even worse position. The mere existence of the option to switch gives players an easy out anytime their empire is in a bad position. This only encouraged more of the same behavior by the other empires. Physed also had a good idea to help alleviate the defensive battle and also encourage cooperation among CR5s is to allow a CR5 to grant a continent a vote toward a benefit. This benefit should be significant for both XP and somewhat toward fighting (health/armor bonus, perhaps). This is sort of an official way of CR5s to call Primary continents and Secondary continents. By casting votes and getting incentives the Primary/Secondary call actually has meaning and naturally gets players to want to go there. The type of bonus could vary, but should definitely include XP bonuses. The purpose of this is to both encourage teamwork among CR5s but also for others to go where the CR5s want them to go, and for the CR5s to be able to help a continent by marking it as being important. The number of benefits should be limited to encourage CR5s to cooperate. It could even be broken down into tiers, where the more votes unlock a better tier of incentive (5%, 10%, and 20%). Its hard to say how the dynamics of such a system would play out so I cant speculate much more than the above. Its worth trying, and it would likely require tweaking before it got the desired result.

Planetside 2 Scores: N/A Missions help this, especially empire missions. The fact that they have a missions system in design is a great way to help encourage things. We have yet to see what incentives missions provide but the missions are a great start and has a great potential to improve the metagame leadership aspect.

2.5.2 Dynamic Population Caps The root of the conflict problem is that population locks were static. Meaning throughout the day, empires usually could pop-lock between 1-2.5 continents. When the pop-lock number is around 2 things are OK, and in-theory each empire could attack the other two on different continents. It doesnt actually work out that way though since the population ratios are always in flux. The Idea of Dynamic Population locks is that the population lock limit varies based on current world population (with some minimums of course). The goal is to allow an empire to lock 2 or more continents

at a time completely, which would allow it to defend itself and help avoid the double-teaming behavior. It also gives an attacking empire two options for attack and they usually wont be the same empire. So rather than having static lock limits, having it vary allows the number of lockable continents to remain fixed so you can better tune the meta-game & global strategy. An example would be minimum population per-faction of 50, maximum of 150. If 300 total players are on the server, then the lock limit would be 50 since the expected population per faction is 100. This allows nearly 2 pop-locked continents during a low-population time. If 900 players are on the server total, it means roughly 300 per side. The rough lock limit should be around 100-120, allowing two fully locked continents and a good chunk of a third for leftovers and players moving around to different continents (like unemployment you need to account for a certain amount of the population to always be transitioning). I dont have good formulas here but the concept is simple enough to understand. Whether the servers have low population or high population, the number of locked continents is similar. The number of locked continents can also transition dynamically if the population is abnormally high or low. In the old days I made a forum post about this idea. You can read it below if you like: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/preList.m? topic_id=1200050805&post_i d=1200050805

Planetside 2 Scores: N/C We dont know enough about population incentives on each continent. This may also not even be relevant in PS2 depending on how the continents fit together. The idea of a Population Lock may be obsolete in PS2, especially if all 3 sides are allowed an equal number on each continent.

2.5.4 Dynamic Lattice / Warp gate Links Another problem that is seen over time is that the battles become repetitive. When the NC attacks Oshur, it is always from the same direction, and usually against the same opponent. Its the same fight, over and over again. In order to get variety, players must switch sides not from a faction perspective, but more from a strategic standpoint. Even that isnt much variety because while they get different fights, those too are repetitive. In the old days when Solsar was a NC home continent, the TR would always attack at Seth, and the NC would almost always be defending it. Its the same fight. Rarely did the VS invade Seth, and even more rarely did the NC invade it. It was stale and repetitive. Not to say those fights werent fun, but it needed to be switched up from time to time. Logging in every night to see the same exact fight from the same exact enemy from the same exact direction got extremely boring. Ive been a longtime advocate for randomizing the continental warp gate

connections periodically. They dont need to change often, but they should change at least monthly and even weekly would keep things interesting. There shouldnt be power-combos like A-S-S. There shouldnt be situations where one empire can take a valuable continent and have a strong defensive position to easily hold it.

Even the continental lattice itself could be subject to change. This is a bit sketchy due to some continent design but the idea is sound create variety by switching up the base connections. New connections mean new fights. New fights means the game stays fresh. Freshness and variety is something that PS has lacked and needs fixing. Dynamically changing lattice would be cool, but the important one is dynamically changing warp gates. Continental benefits could also change, and changing it means old continents receive new love. Continental design itself should be carefully considered with respect to base benefits and attack paths. Some continents were difficult to attack and prone to hours of stalemate (Hossin is particularly terrible for this, so is Forseral). Within this one could devise some heuristics and algorithms for quasi- randomizing the gate connections and/or lattice to keep the game interesting. You could add another layer of strategy by changing a lattice connection based on what continental locks a faction has, and/or its relative population. For example, the low-population empire might have some of its connections sealed to discourage a double-team, or an empire with many locked continents might find its lattice has extra connections, making it easier for attackers to advance. Back in 05 I made the above suggestion for rotating lattice. You can read the details here: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/preList.m? topic_id=1200088907&post_id=1200088907 Change it up! Keep things fresh. Reward conquest, but dont let it make an empire too strong. Planetside 2 Scores: C There are no plans to rotate the warpgate bases in PS2, which would be the equivalent of the rotating lattice. I am concerned that this will lead to static and stale fights where empires are effectively fighting the same battle over the same terrain many times over, and always from the same direction due to the home base location of each empire. It needs to be mixed up. I have a PSU post in the Idea Vault on this topic of uncap randomization, which you can read here: http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36782

3. Economics Continental Strategy

Global strategy was about managing large numbers of players, foreseeing trends in the opposing troop deployments and making macro decisions on those deployments. Good global strategy would help avoid double-teams and more often than not, lead your faction to more victory and less losing. This is all well and good,

but when the actual fighting happened on continents it was a completely different animal. Continents were often pop locked on both sides, meaning the troop deployments were roughly equal on both sides. Yet even when that was the case we saw some armies storm across a continent and dominate others. How was this so? The simple answer is economics. PlanetSide battles, at their heart, are battles of economics and production. Many years ago I wrote a document on Continental Strategy. It is on the PS Art of War forum. You can read it here: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=600000085 For the most part that document is still quite accurate and I highly recommend reading it to fully understand what I mean by the economics of continental strategy.

Planetside 2 Scores: AIm giving this a score of A because of the potential of the PS2 design. I give it a minus for the apparent lack of resource denial as an effective tactic. There are still all of the core elements of PS1 in the PS2 system, along with a resource model which can offer a more refined version of the PS economy. There are tanks which gain ground, anchors (galaxies) which help hold it, maintenance (sunderers) to keep the vehicles going, Libs & ES Aircraft for suppression and support, and AA support (lightning AA and secondary gun AA). All the core elements from the PS1 continental strategy outlined in the forum post above are alive and well. The only issue is that galaxies appear to be very different anchors. While we do not know the details of how the resources will be balanced it is definitely a workable system. Even if it isnt perfect right out of the gate I have high confidence it can be tweaked to be a good situation. The only downside to the resource model is the idea of the Rich get richer problem. I go into detail about this problem here. http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=39921 Higby replied on that thread and indicated that they have resources awarded for generating score, which helps combat this problem (but contributes to the problem below). The lack of the resource denial is outlined in this thread. http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=43536 Higby also gave a lengthy reply here and indicated that the influence system has more applications that we are currently aware. We will have to see if denial works out, this could easily be upgraded to an A since the core design is very sound. Additionally with the inclusion of the footholds the problem of cracking a continent is effectively gone, as the attacking forces always have a foothold where more vehicles can be pulled. This makes for more streamlined gameplay and helps avoid situations where an entire empire is zerging out of a tower.

3.1 The PS Economy

The PS economy was made up of a few factors: 1) Respawn time & rate. The faster you respawn the more troops you will have active. Shorter respawn means hotter spawn rooms. Respawn timer and inconvenience are really the death penalties in PS. Dying means you need to run back or wait for a timer. Those timers are critical and determine how successful smaller squads are at taking objectives with respawn tubes

nearby. Long respawns also increase the chance of camping them because players will be more spread out. World of Warcraft and other games have a wave spawn concept where troops spawn in waves. In this model you can have an average respawn time of say 15 seconds, but it varies depending on how you die and you always come back with others. This might be a good innovation for PlanetSide, but in large battles it would just be too crowded. 2) Vehicle Timers. These started at 10 minutes but later moved to 5. This substantially increased the number of vehicles we saw in the field. The more frequently one can pull a vehicle the more you will see. Consequently, the longer the timer the fewer of a vehicle you will see and the more care players will give to their vehicles. This is a very easy number to tweak to control prevalence of vehicles by the game developers. Want to see less aircraft spam? Put them on the same timer or extend the timers by a few minutes. Want to see more tanks? Shorten the timer. Very easy number to tweak that will have a profound impact on how battles play out. 3) Number of Vehicle terminals. This is the heart of production. Tech plants were vital not only because they allowed the use of advanced vehicles but more so because the production output of a tech plant was roughly 3x that of a normal base. A tech plant could spit out 2 aircraft and 1 land vehicle in the same time as any other base could only produce one of either. This meant that tech plants make ideal beach heads for attack and difficult targets for attack. Consider Forseral, in the south the Anu tech plant was the source of many battles, and it was a hard nut to crack because of its ability to project a lot of vehicles in a short timeframe. This is simple production capacity. 4) Number of players pulling vehicles. This is the production capacity. When players stop pulling vehicles the military might of an empire drops dramatically. Infantry are the least-efficient open- field fighters and they should be. Vehicles are a resource and their value is the efficiency in transportation and firepower that they bring. This is production potential. 5) Accessibility of repair/rearm. You often saw a lot more vehicles when repair/rearm pads were available. Early in PS there wasnt a lot of aircraft, and those that did fly aircraft had to carry their own extra ammunition and often did not have heavy weapons loadouts. When the game added rearm pads for aircraft that changed almost overnight as it was no longer necessary to carry ammunition and fly off, land, repair, rearm. You could fly to a tower, hover for a few minutes, and then fly back. Personally I think repair/rearm was a bit too accessible in PS and I liked having to make a conscious tradeoff about what sort of gear you pack and if you were serious about your vehicle. However repair/rearm was a huge convenience. For a PS sequel I

think every base should offer some slow, repair ability, while having a repair benefit increases it significantly. That way repair isnt such a lopsided benefit. Planetside 2 Scores: AThese same core production aspects are still alive and well in PS2, with the added resource system to provide another layer of supply and limitation.

3.2 Making Progress

Continental strategy to those who knew it well was about encouraging others to pull vehicles. Not just any vehicles, but the correct vehicles. Tanks moved lines, but they needed air cover. AA vehicles did well to suppress air swarms. Skyguards were absolutely necessary vehicles, in spite of what some snobby elitists might tell you. PlanetSide is not a game about honorable air du-els; its about winning a war. Vehicles often had paper-rock-scissors characteristics. Tanks were vulnerable to aircraft; Aircraft were vulnerable to AA. AA was vulnerable to tanks. Thats it at its basic form. Having players who could pull the vehicle needed for the job could push back a line. Of course there were other ways of killing tanks other than aircraft, and there were other ways of killing AA other than tanks, but at the heart of it that was the rough rock-paper-scissors aspect of PS. The best way progress was made was to discourage the enemy from pulling vehicles, either by hindering production facilities, taking them offline, or by efficient killing. When the enemy stopped pulling vehicles they moved to footzerging, and when that happened they typically got rolled. This natural progression of vehicles to infantry to base loss is how battles on continents were lost, even when the numbers were even. Bombing runs over vehicle pads was actually a brilliant tactical move, though many players often thought it was lame. Such bombing runs hinder enemy production of vehicles and discourage players from getting them. In effect, a liberator bombing a vehicle pad is in every sense of the term strategic bombing. Bombers could also be used to take out AMS effectively and push an infantry-zerg from outside a base to inside a base and help secure courtyard control. Libs were fine additions. Taking out lodestars, flails, and AMS also moved the battle forward. Knocking out power to tech plans hinders tank and advanced aircraft production. Tech plants are vital to waging successful continental warfare and this is a great thing for the game. This is where base benefits and strategic locations within a base make for outstanding gameplay for PlanetSide.

Planetside 2 Scores: N/A Hard to say how effective continental progress can be made. Since not much has changed in the core vehicle roles, and we have resources helping govern supply I project that making progress on a continent in PS2 will be largely the same as PS1. However, it does depend on how effective vehicles are compared to infantry. It

doesnt appear that bombing runs will make much of an impact on production like they could in PS1 as most vehicle terms appear to be sheltered.

3.4 Manipulating Continental Strategy

The games developers have a great deal of control over how the continental battles play out. By introducing hard counter vehicles (such as tanks that can mow as one might expect them to) you force combined-arms strategies at the vehicle level for open-field fighting and base sieges. AA Max and Skyguards were vital to the air swarms. Tanks were vital against infantry. As noted above, there are many levers a developer can control to fine-tune the game, the chief of which are the cert point costs and the vehicle timers. Longer timers = lower output. More points = lower potential. You can create real risk vs. reward with this setup by having strong vehicles that cost many points and have long timers. This I believe was the initial idea behind BFRs the problem is you cant go too far into an extreme.

Tech plant benefits are also important. You could make tech plants provide a vehicle timer reduction as opposed to opening up advanced vehicles. As it is with the increased production and the advanced vehicle bonus Tech plants were the most vital base to any offensive. How easy it is to repair/rearm and the rate of repair/rearm also affects vehicle production. Repair was another benefit that severely impacted the effectiveness of a force. If you had it you were in great shape. If your opponents had it then you were in for an uphill battle. Base benefits, Lattice connections, and means of disabling bases also affect continental strategy. New innovations to the game can target these sorts of things. Battles and campaigns on a continent were all about economics and the rockpaper-scissors design. Use combined arms, keep rolling vehicles, and hinder the enemys ability to produce and victory is achieved. Of course crack squads of skilled players also helps, but if you want to take a continent you got to win the big battles and the small ones. Planetside 2 Scores: C I give this a C because the primary method of manipulation of the enemy production in PS1 was by manipulating the lattice to hinder production or deny tech. The PS2 equivalent is resource denial. Resource denial appears absent in PS2, however The lack of the resource denial is outlined in this thread. http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=43536 It may turn out OK, so this grade could improve later. But from what we know now denial does not appear particularly strong, at least not compared to PS2 where a drop of a tech plant could spell doom for an empire if they did not recover it quickly.

4. Vehicles
Vehicles define PlanetSide. They were the thing that made PS stand out more than any other in its time. Remember PS was out in the era of Counter-Strike. Rich infantry battles were already covered. But what PlanetSide offered was a persistent world and tons of vehicles and a lot of experiences you simply couldnt get elsewhere. PS took the scale of warfare beyond simple infantry tactics and made it a full- scale war with territory, economics, bases, and epic mayhem. It is what made PS the greatness that it is.

4.1 Vehicle Rock-Paper-Scissors

Take a look at it from a high level.

Tank beats infantry/smaller vehicles Aircraft beats tank Skyguard/AA Max beats Aircraft Infantry/Small Vehicles beats Skyguard/AA Max

(This is a general overview and there are of course many exceptions) This was an important part of the game and it helped lead to vehicle diversity in the game. In warfare it leads to Combined-Arms and makes for rich battles. A lot of players hovered around the 1-man air vehicles as some sort of nirvana of skill and detested the AA portion of this combo, and thats natural. They hate the thing thats designed to ruin their day and dont want it. Dont listen to them; its not what the game is about and AA serves a very important purpose in the game. This was also not absolute aircraft could kill Skyguards and AA max and they often did. Infantry often killed tanks. In fact infantry + max were usually enough to handle most threats other than concentrated vehicles. Concentrated vehicles of course should stop them.

4.2 Air Vehicles

Im going to start with the Air Vehicles. PS had a delicate balance in aircraft that was upset a number of times. Lets talk about aircraft types first and the roles they fill. 1) Transport Aircraft a. Galaxies. These were great ships with better design later in the game. They were multi- manned vehicles and by design they should have been harder to kill and had good defenses. A single pilot should have had difficulty taking them down due to their defenses. Sadly this was not the case in early PS, but galaxies shouldnt be completely self-sufficient escort aircraft should be required, but small threats should be handled by a galaxy + crew. I also liked how pilots could lock the vehicle to simulate a coordinated drop. Its something that needs to be more of an official feature of the Galaxy. Gal drops were one of the best ways to deploy projected force to a hot base behind the lines, but it had some flaws that I describe below. An outfit called The Enclave did this better than anyone else and were a shining example of how this vehicle could become the entire theme of an outfit. Being able to have a light vehicle in the Galaxy was also great. It became a resupply dropper with ANTs and also could pack its own ground support (Skyguard/assault buggy). b. Phantasm. Late in PS the Phantasm came about, which was a covert transport. Im not sure how this would have played out in the heyday but it had the right design and tradeoffs. No weapons (stealth was its weapon), smaller troop payload. This was a great vehicle for small squad deployment. I had some time in one of these on one of my visits back to PS in the later years. Good vehicle, good design. Early on it had a gun and that was just dumb and didnt play out well. Cloaked vehicles should not have guns. Lesson learned, I hope. c. Lodestar. Vehicle transport aircraft with a twist its also a mobile repair/rearm facility. This was a great support aircraft design. Due to its mobile repair/rearm ability it became a strategic target in battles. Bombers would go for them, tanks would go for them, and hackers would go for them. This was all very well and good and the Lodestar was a fine addition to PS. Recon Aircraft a. Mosquito. In the beginning this was a vehicle true to its purpose scouting. It was fast, it was fragile, and it provided rapid transportation as well as eyes to troops in form of its radar. Unfortunately these qualities also made it an ideal killing machine, which was not its purpose. Early on this was not the case because its one gun was not accurate. Somewhere along the way the PS devs tightened the 12mm guns cone-of-fire and made them dead-accurate. This turned the Mosquito from a scout craft to an all-purpose one- man killing machine. It was fast, so it could out-

2)

maneuver any other aircraft. It had radar so it could hunt down infantry and AMS. It was small and agile so it was difficult for infantry to destroy it outside of an AA max. And its tight cone-of-fire made it perfect for

3)

4)

quickly gunning down infantry. The Mosquito exceeded its role and as a result you saw a lot of elite players piloting them because they were the most efficient killing vehicle, especially in swarms. It was just too good of an aircraft. I believe the key problem with the mosquito was its armament. It had a lot of ammunition and it was simply too good at killing. It had no real tradeoffs and could eventually kill tanks with its 12mm gun. A lightly-armed recon aircraft is a good design, but the mosquito exceeded its role when it became a one-man efficient killing machine. I think the simplest solution to this vehicle is to remove the gun or severely limit it, either by shortening the magazine, ammo capacity, or its accuracy. If its gun is designed for limited-use to maybe destroy only a few infantry or one other aircraft it would be a true recon aircraft and not misused. The real issue with the mosquito is that it needs to have natural enemies in the air and it really doesnt. AA maxes are about its only true threat and its speed allows it to avoid them most of the time. Removing its armament would really be the best solution to this aircraft. I have additional commentary further down. Gunship a. Reaver. The Reaver served as the PS gunship. It was primarily an airto-ground aircraft, though it also was decent at killing other aircraft. It was good for taking down galaxies and bombers, as it should be, but it lost to Mosquitoes and the mosquito AA variant. I thought this was a well designed aircraft and fun to fly. Its primary role was as an antivehicle platform. Rocket spam could kill infantry, but its gun, size, and speed made it not ideal anti-infantry. Infantry and faster aircraft were its bane, and due to slower speed it was more vulnerable to AA. This aircraft was a good 1-man vehicle and I think it should remain that way because it had some significant drawbacks (infantry & AA). It was important for taking out tanks, AMS, and other vehicles but it was still relatively easy to kill. This is an ideal vehicle to balance by vehicle timers/cert cost if you want to control its population. Make it more of an investment or make it have longer downtime. This also rewards players who are good at piloting it. Strategic Bomber a. Liberator. I love the Liberator. It was my favorite aircraft to fly simply because it was a 3 man vehicle that could turn the tide of battle with good piloting. I think the Lib needed to be stronger for what it did. Its bombs were the right damage, but the vehicle itself was incredibly vulnerable to aircraft, and it was 3-man aircraft. Libs without escort and without a tail gunner should be vulnerable, but a tail gunner should be able to fend off lone aircraft. It just makes sense. I have a few ideas here, such as making it a 2-man aircraft and making the bombardier & tail gunner the same person i.e. the bombardier can switch roles. The problem is that it may fail in its mission of bombing if the bombardier spends all his time in the tail gunner

position. Another option is to make the aircraft sturdier allow it to take more damage and also beef up the tail gun. Give the tail gun a wider arc so it can hit aircraft slightly above it. Another option is to give the tail gun an alternate fire-mode to have an AA-Flak burst. You dont want to make flak its primary gun, but having flak burst would allow it to be dangerous against lone aircraft trying to take it down and reward players for investing 3 people in a single strategic

5)

bomber. This was one of the more difficult vehicles to fly well and it required good piloting to nail the targets, a good bomber to know when to drop them, but the tail gunning position needed work. With some tweaks the Lib could be used in its current form as a great aircraft. The nose gun was right on also. Powerful, slow, inaccurate, but good against large, slow, or stationary targets. The Libs variant was intended to be a tank buster but I do not think it succeeded in this role. A real tank buster needs to be faster. It could lose its tail gun, gain a lot more speed, get an afterburner, and maybe be a little smaller. The main problem with the tank buster Lib is that it wandered into the Reavers role. It really needs a redesign. Air-to-Air a. Wasp. This is a role that lacked in the early days of PS. The Reaver/mosquito served as air-to-air. A true Air-to-Air role is a good one for a few reasons. It fits well into the paper-rock-scissors aspect. Interceptors are very real aircraft and have an important role. The Wasp I think was a good idea with a close to good implementation. The problem was the mosquito was just too good in its own right and it encroached upon the Wasps role. I like clearly defined roles for Vehicles, and I think the Wasp is correct, while the Mosquito needed to lose some offensive capabilities. The Wasp should naturally balance itself, as an air-to-air vehicle should not be good against ground targets. Infantry and AA max should be a threat to these, as should other Wasps. If players want dogfights I think the Wasp is a good vehicle to have that and specialize in. It requires careful planning and use of afterburner, missiles, and guns. Id like to go into more about the Wasp bullets just say that it was a good approach but the design could use a bit of tweaking. The role is perfect and necessary in PS. It fills a niche and fits the rock-paper-scissors aspect well.

4.3 Ground Vehicles

Ground vehicles were the meat of the army. They gained and held ground while aircraft might bugger off when a few AA units showed up. 1) Buggies a. Harasser. We lovingly called these things coffins. I think it was the first vehicle they made in PS and therefore had a special place in their hearts. These were really bad and only good for simple transport. They were fast though and basic jeeps or transport. I think they serve a role as cheap-effective transport. I would like to see the Harasser as a standard vehicle anyone can pull out. Its good for teamwork since you can have a passenger and it always ensures every player has a means of driving to the battle. It has really no combat value other than carrying an LLU, so it doesnt hurt to give this guy to everyone and helps facilitate getting-to-the-fight easier. b. Assault Buggy. These were just plain fun. Threshers, Enforcers, and

Marauders were fun vehicles, and great for the rexo grunt to use. They had a lot of balance problems with these. The Enforcer was the most well designed buggy. Good Armor, good speed, and a

great weapon. The Thresher was the most fun but its weapon needed some buffs. The main problem with its weapon was the travel time. Eventually the orbs got sped up and that helped it a lot. Buggies were good at being both anti-vehicle and anti-infantry. This was a good role for them as light vehicles. The Marauder should be designed and balanced as a 2 man vehicle with its extra passenger and gun being bonus (i.e. not a contributing factor to its balance when you add a 3 person you should increase its effectiveness). I would have liked to see the pounder have a gun alternate fire mode. Then it would have been a pretty good all around buggy with its main advantage being a rd 3 passenger and a little extra firepower if you went that route. c. Skyguard. Also known as the Skillguard by snotty elitist pilots. As stated before it serves a very important role. It was a well designed vehicle good at that role and weak to just about everything else. It could suppress aircraft very well; it was a fast buggy and a great support vehicle for tanks. All around great vehicle that died easily to infantry AV, assault buggies, and tanks. Well done, this guy should make a repeat appearance. The elitist pilots can learn to deal. Everything needs a counter, and this is a hard counter to air swarms. This is one vehicle that demonstrates that the best force in the game is not one-dimensional; rather it is a combination of vehicles that play to each others weaknesses. Tanks a. Heavy Tank. These differed by faction and added flavor. Tanks were the backbone of the ground forces. They suppress infantry and destroy other vehicles. They pave the way and other ground vehicles are built around them. The Vanguard I believe was the most solid tank due to a good design. The Magrider had great value and the ability to snipe aircraft. The main problem with the mag was its ability to hover on water where they have very stable aiming and can easily avoid tank shells. A simple fix here is to have tank shells and other ordinance explode when they hit the surface of the water so near- misses still do splash damage. Still, it was a good advantage to the VS. Giving the driver a gun was an advantage Im not so sure about. The mag might use a little redesign but otherwise it was a good tank being the fastest and lightest of them. The Prowler was a little too bulky and suffered from the 3-man design. Like the Marauder I think the prowler should have been designed and balanced on a 2-man crew with the 3 crew member being purely bonus, but otherwise a solid tank. b. Lightning. We lovingly referred to these as hamsters due to their appearance. The lightning was a vehicle that was good at harassment and in the hands of a good pilot could be quite dangerous. It seemed pretty well balanced to me as a 1-man tank. It didnt have the firepower of the heavy tanks and it was difficult to pilot correctly. It was a good -=-=light tank design. I also like how they made it part of the Armor package where lightning leads to Heavy tanks so any heavy
rd rd

2)

tank pilot gets the lightning for free. This is a good way to encourage tank drivers and give them something for their teamwork investment in a two-man tank. Good design, good vehicle, good cert grouping with heavy tanks.

3)

4)

(Shout out to Adam Prater, the best Hamster pilot there ever was. May he rest in peace.) Transport a. ATVs. These were great, fast single person transports. I like the concept of an ATV being a good mine layer with an engineer to go out and lay traps. The cloaked ATV was another great concept for infiltrator players. Nothing really big to say here, I like ATVs, 1-2 cert points was about right for all of them. b. Deliverer. Originally just a single vehicle this was given empirespecific variants. This was a nice light-transport and had overall a pretty good design. Heavy armor is good; it carried a lot of players so it shouldnt be overly easy to destroy. People also used it as a gunboat support vehicle. While fun Im not sure of the role this fills. I think this vehicle should be given more delivery features and maybe less firepower. I see the weaponry as more self defense and for helping get the troops to where they need to be and less about suppression of enemy forces. The variants are similar in that respect. Good medium vehicle. c. Sunderer. These got a lot of revamp and I havent had much experience with the revised Sunderer, but irrespective of that there is a fundamental flaw with the idea of the Sunderer similar to that of the galaxy. I elaborate more on this below. Support a. AMS. The AMS was really a great design. A mobile spawn point for infantry. AMS served a vital role they were the anchors of an assault. You move one up, infantry start spawning there and they help hold the ground that you took. The design of the cloaking bubble was a good one, and the synergy with Combat engineering was also great. The only downside I have to say about AMS revolves around how the cloak bubble could be glitched at some times (using darklight was an exploit early on causing AMS far away to flicker the bubble), giving away its position. Care has to be taken with cloaking to make sure the AMS functions well and isnt easily discoverable. It relies on stealth. Great strategic targets, the AMS was extremely important to PlanetSides gameplay. The other issue with AMS was the mowing. It shouldnt be a mow vehicle because that isnt its role. When people drove AMS around just to mow with them thats a balance problem that needs fixing. But other than that, mowing was good for tanks and assault buggies to a much lesser extent. b. Router. The Router was a great addition with Core Combat. It had a lot of uses from allowing quick access from spawn rooms to vehicle terminals (thus facilitating production) to also being a good offensive tool to cracking a base. The routers design was good. The effects of it could probably be reduced because they often gave away its position under an AMS bubble, but still, good vehicle, good design, great gameplay concept. c. Flail. Another core combat addition, flails served the role of Artillery.

This was a good addition and something I think factions should have in general. The idea of a spotter was good for targeting flails, and the long trails the flail left made it somewhat easy for infantry to avoid (this is a good thing). Flails with accurate targeting gave cloakers and

spotters a role, though it wasnt often used in the game. Mostly flailures just spammed until they got kill-spam indicating a good spot, or they did it so much they knew the spots and angles to shoot by memory. Flailing a key chokepoint or vehicle terminal often led to the fall of a base. These are great vehicle concepts though I think the availability and usage of the flail needs some work. Artillery is good and fits the paper-rock-scissors model well. Theyre very vulnerable to any form of vehicle and infantry but they can be used to soften up a position and do strategic hits on enemy positions of importance. Flails made good bomber targets for moving a position, especially if the flails were hammering a chokepoint. They often had enough health to survive most air attacks, but Libs could take em out in a single run.

The Vanguard was my first love in PlanetSide. I wrote an old guide on how to drive one properly that received quite a bit of acclaim. http://forums.station.sony.com/ps/posts/list.m?topic_id=1300001047

Good design overall and kudos to the devs for coming up with such a complete set of vehicles for the game. Except for one

4.4 BFRS
BFRs deserve their own section. From feedback Ive read recently it seems the PS management doesnt see them as a bad feature of the game. The reason they were bad is because they didnt fit a battlefield role, combined multiple roles, violated core concepts of the game, and slowed down combat to stagnation. The gameplay consequences were quite severe. Apart from being horribly imbalanced, nearly indestructible compared to all other vehicles, and violating the teamwork rule, they were made highly mobile with a run mode and a flight variant. Flying indestructible one-man killing machines. Did anyone actually think that through? The critical error was violating the Teamwork Rule. While BFRs had a gunner seat it wasnt necessary. They could be used without gunners as a breacher, and the shield regen and jumping aspect gave them amazing survivability. They allowed 1-man killing machines that were highly effective. This shattered the teamwork rule and ruined the vehicle balance of the game. By the time they were toned down and made killable the damage was done. Even to this day the role they play is not great. There is such a thing as too much survivability for a vehicle. The role I believe BFRs were intended to play is that of a flexible weapons platform that could fill several roles. Thats part of the problem with them no other vehicle in PS is like that. The role I believe they should have been is more of a heavy, heavy tank. If they had been ground-only with less survivability with maybe 2 gunners

wielding configurable weapon platforms then they might have gone fairly well. But doing so would have them overriding the normal heavy tank role. They simply werent well defined.

I think some designers just went wild with them and put on cool stuff not realizing the impact they would have to gameplay. Every vehicle should be designed around a role. Most every other vehicle in PS this is true, but for BFRs it wasnt. Ultra-survivable flexible weapon platforms are not a good idea. Fundamentally they break the paper-rock-scissors model. And such power should never be placed within a single player.

4.5 Aircraft Balance

Aircraft, along with Heavy Assault, was among the most discussed topics of PlanetSide. Many players enjoyed dogfights and flying around. The PS devs did a great job making flying fun in PlanetSide. However, the role and balance of Aircraft and Anti-Aircraft was a hotly debated issue and source for much frustration.

4.5.1 Concept: Empire-Specific Gunship Real-world gunships are something missing from PS, and they are an opportunity for empire-specific aircraft. The Role of a gunship is clear air-to-ground dominance. Sticking with the teamwork theme, the Gunship would be to aircraft what a Tank is to ground forces far more threatening, capable of a lot of damage. Think of a Reaver on serious steroids. The role these play is similar to real-world gunships theyre tank-busters and infantry suppression aircraft with a dedicated gunner. 2-person aircraft with 3 weapon systems: - Rockets (pilot) like the Reaver's only larger magazine - Chain gun (gunner) 25mm gun, like the Lib tail gun, for anti-infantry, mounted on a swivel - Anti-Tank weapon (gunner) Empire-specific anti-tank weapon on a swivel o VS = Beefed-up Lancer o TR = Beefed-up Striker, laser-guided (only works on ground targets) o NC = Beefed-up Phoenix, camera-guided All of the Anti-tank weapons have long reload times to prevent spam abuse and reduce sniping. The 25mm gun should be mounted on the nose with a decent up-angle so it could be used as airdefense. It should be slower than a Reaver and have a blind spot in the rear that other aircraft can exploit. It might be necessary to give the 25mm a little bit of a splash effect. This vehicle should replace the Liberator variant as an anti-tank aircraft, which largely fails in its role as an anti-tank platform. As a low-altitude aircraft the gunship will be weak to AA, but it also has the capability to kill AA with its weapons.

4.5.2 Concept: Medium-Dropships Another interesting discussion about PS is speeding up the pace and getting people to the action faster. This is a hard topic because things that might speed up the pace also take away from what makes PS great its huge world, immersiveness, flexibility, freedom to go anywhere and do anything, large objective-oriented bases, etc. There are other ways to get a good result, however. One of my earliest memories of PlanetSide was the first time I logged into beta. I entered Sanc and saw a Sanctuary full of vehicles, mostly Galaxy dropships. Players were forming up squads in local chat, citing certifications and specialties putting together a team that could cover all their bases. At the heart of early-PS squads was the Gal pilot. Since not a lot of cert points existed folks with MAX or tanks or support abilities or super-grunt certs needed fast transportation. The Gal offered that and kept the squad together all at the same time. Squads took off out of Sanc in a galaxy and flew across the world to go take bases and fight. It was such a cool sight. In hindsight something like that wont ever last long. The reason is because cert points pick up and people move on to more efficient means of transportation, namely light aircraft. Almost every top player in the game after the first few months flew some type of air cav, either mosquito or Reaver or both. The reason was that it was efficient travel. It covered ground very quickly and was the tool of choice. Additionally it had the weaponry to take care of the common base hack threats AMS and other aircraft. Add in Mosquito radar and it was the perfect vehicle. This is the natural progression of PS players. They will all gravitate toward personal transportation that is efficient. However, even when battles get going getting infantry to the base and passed ground defenses is no simple task. One outfit known as The Enclave was exceptionally good at coordinating Gal drops with heavy infantry. The real problem with Galaxies in PS was that it required a dropship center or sanctuary to get one, they were slow (by aircraft standards), bulky, and easy targets for other aircraft. Accessibility was the biggest issue. Late in PS the Phantasm was finally born, a medium-sized air transport that can cloak. It had four passengers that could be Rexo Grunts. It was actually quite a good transport. However it had some steep requirements (as it should). I have an idea to help make getting-to-the-fight easy and make aerial transport a key part of a battle. Create a medium-sized dropship, and make it cheap and accessible. A smaller galaxy. Make the medium dropship 2 cert points and the gateway to Air-Support. 1 more point in addition could get the lodestar. An alternate path would be to spend 2 more points and get the Liberator. Or 2 points and get access to the Phantasm. (The phantasm is sort of like a variant of this medium dropship I am thinking about). So Air-support would have 4 certs, with 3 of them

optional paths that have the medium dropship as the core cert. The medium dropship should require no tech and no other certs. It is roughly the size of a Liberator but has an afterburner and handles a smidge better and faster than the Lib with similar armor. Like the Phantasm it has no weaponry at all. Not even a passenger gun. The intent

is for its speed and armor to carry it to its destination and for friendlies in aircraft/wasps to fly cover. The medium dropship should carry a pilot + 4 passengers and 1 MAX.

The purpose of the medium dropship is to make it easy to get dropships and make them prolific as alternate transportation and allow infantry to easily make advances on bases in a fairly reliable air transport. Two of these dropships are roughly equivalent to a Gal-drop. Their speed is intended to get them to the target with the passengers in-tact, much like a Liberator. Anyone who can fly a gal can fly one of these, and as a pre-req for the Phantasm you can guarantee air transport is always available. For infantry-heavy outfits like the Enclave such a vehicle would make their style of combat easier to adapt to the game as they can pull their dropships from any base and get to the fight faster. Low-rank players can make friends by doing dropship services to bases, or getting grunts to support a base quickly. I believe that if a good dropship was easily accessible in such a way, cheap and as a root to many other air certs that they will be common and used frequently as good transport options. Some players will of course still use Mosquitoes because they are more efficient. But the point is that the mass army of infantry that often gets created could be air-lifted without much effort or logistics. PS would also retain sort of that old-school dropship-focused approach where aircraft support the dropships, and the dropships get the infantry in. This unit makes the Galaxy mostly obsolete however, since 2 of these dropships is equivalent in troop delivery to a single galaxy. The lighter, faster medium dropships will see a lot more use and accessibility alone will pretty much render the Galaxy unneeded. I like dropships in PS and its a great theme. After all, who doesnt like the concept of the highly mobile infantry air-cav? Its cool, and fun!

4.5.3 The Mosquito Mosquitoes are an aircraft that created a problem. It was anti-infantry, anti-air, highly accessible, and the best personal transport in the game. It is the best 3-point cert in the game and a killing machine for both infantry and aircraft. The key problem with this vehicle is that it is simply too good. Its intended to be a scout aircraft, not an infantry mower or the best dogfighter. Originally the mosquito was not a strong vehicle it was a scout vehicle. CR5s used it as rapid transportation to quite literally scout out hacks on locked continents. Others used it to just move around the continents quickly. It was the ideal use of the mosq and the intended use of the Mosq transportation and recon. During one of the balance passes the 12mm gun became dead-accurate, and since the mosquito has one it went from a scout/transportation vehicle to being a killing machine. As I quoted Physed earlier, the game devolved into one-man-army mosquito pilots/grunts. Mosquito swarms could take down any other aircraft and quickly lay waste to even tanks with 2-3 of them. Being the best vehicle in the game attracted a lot of players to them, and as much fun as the

mosquito may have been it was not good for PlanetSide to have this design. By being an accessible anti-infantry and anti-air weapon with speed and

accessibility it is just too much. It can do everything, and a vehicle that can do everything breaks the balance of the game. And so with great unpopularity of the one-man-army mosq pilots, I strongly recommend removing the weapon from this aircraft and making it its own standalone cert or simply removing the aircraft all together. I like the idea of the mosquito in its scout/transportation role, but as a combat aircraft a decision needs to be made about it is it anti-air, or anti-ground? If the answer is anti-air then that already existsthe wasp. If the answer is anti-ground, then that too already exists in better form as the Reaver. The mosquito in its current form simply has too much role overlap so it needs to either be relegated to its own transportation/scouting role or removed. Evolve PlanetSide and get rid of this vehicle in this form.

4.5.4 Aircraft Cert Layout Assuming the original 20 BRs and 23 cert points, Id recommend the following aircraft cert layout. Aircraft Tree [4] Assault Aircraft (Reaver) o [2] Interceptor (Wasp) o [1] Ground Assault Aircraft (Gunship) [3] Scout Aircraft (Mosquito no gun) [2] Air Transport (Dropship) o [2] Air Support (Liberator, Lodestar) o [2] Covert Transport (Phantasm)

This tree is carefully considered. All first-tier certs in the above example do not require tech to pull the vehicle while all of the second-tier certs do (this means Reaver is a non-tech vehicle) A player has 3 choices of aircraft. The cheapest option is the teamwork option dropship. This is to encourage more dropships and make it the economical choice. If they want to have faster transport but just for themselves, then they can go slightly more expensive and get the Mosquito. If they want to get into combat then the Reaver gates entry, but then unlocks some powerful options. (Another option is to make the Mosquito a 1-point cert with Air Transport as a pre-req) Reaver is intentionally expensive so becoming a combat pilot is an investment, just like hacking/engineering/medical etc is an investment. It is a tremendously good vehicle and worth it. This was the original cost of the Reaver and a good price tag. The Liberator is technically a combat aircraft but it is kept in the Air-Transport tree so takers of that cert have a combat option

open to them, and the Lib is effectively the same cost as a Reaver overall. This fits the teamwork principle that multi-manned vehicles are cheaper than single-man vehicles.

Every aircraft has a well-defined role and price tag now how that role is clearly used.

4.5.5 Concept: Altitude-based Balance The challenge is identifying roles for aircraft and AA that make sense. Groundbased AA is intended to protect ground targets. A great idea Physed had was splitting the balance by altitude. Consider two ranges exist high altitude and low altitude. The concept is that ground-based AA is very effective at low-altitude targets but far less effective against high-altitude targets. This splits air-combat into two layers. This allows the air balance to be determined independently from the ground balance and gives aircraft distinct roles.

High Altitude: Liberator - Strategic bomber at high altitudes it is intended to take out artillery, anchors, base suppression, and chokepoints. It uses high altitude to protect it against ground-based AA, but is weak against other aircraft. Wasp Air-to-Air dogfighter. The natural enemy of the Liberator and other aircraft. It is kept in-check by its lower armor and thus vulnerability to groundbased AA but enjoys protection of high altitudes where it has its dogfights with other aircraft. Dropships Another threat to ground forces is troops being bypassed and dropped behind the lines. High altitude can be used as protection to deliver the fleshy cargo.

Low Altitude: Gunships close air support for ground forces. Gunships are intended to brave the ground-based AA to help take out tanks and infantry swarms. The natural enemy of the Tank. Based on real-world gunships. The aerial version of the Vanguard/Magrider/Prowler.

Both: Reaver The Reaver is an all-purpose aircraft though shines as air-to ground as sort of a light-gunship. It is sort of like the aerial version of a Lightning. It is a multi-role aircraft.

Ground-Based AA needs a damage degradation formula based on the vertical distance between the AA unit and the target. Eve Online has a good example of

the type of formula I am thinking of and they use it for calculating falloff damage for turrets. This is the same concept only it is isolated to absolute

value of the vertical difference between the AA gun and its target. Take for example the vertical max range of an AA weapon lets say its 300m. At At At At 0-130m that AA weapon will do 100% damage to Aircraft. 150m that AA weapon will do 50% damage 200m that AA weapon will do 20% damage 250-300+m that AA weapon will do 10% damage

The idea here is a sharp curve at around 50% max vertical range (do not confuse this with max range of the weapon; this is purely dependent on the z-axis, not x & y). This is what creates the altitude differences and this is what makes AA far less effective against high-altitude targets. Note that it shouldnt ever go to 0 AA should always do some damage, but the intent is for it to do much less so theyd only shoot at high altitude targets if there was nothing more immediate. It also means that flying over a hotspot will never be risk-free. The reticules for AA weapons could have indicators telling them whether their target is in optimal range or not (red=optimal, yellow=reduced, blue = low damage, something like that). Also given the different heights of continents, the flight ceiling may need to be raised substantially to give aircraft enough clearance to have a high-altitude playground.

The goal of all of this is to give aircraft a quasi-safe-haven to have their air-battles and not let AA dominate all levels of sky. Instead AA can harass high-altitude aircraft but they are lethal to low-altitude aircraft. However, at low-altitudes aircraft generally have trees & hills they can use for cover to break locks and avoid AA. High altitude doesnt have that luxury. Im hoping that this will give the dogfighters their place and their important role in the battle take out bombers & dropships. When theyre not going after those targets reavers & wasps can risk AA and fly low as air-to-ground or to take out gunships. Dogfighters have the Reaver and the Wasp to choose from.

4.6 Galaxies & Sunderers as Transport

Theres a problem with Galaxies and Sunderers, especially with the recent variants, and that is that the cost-effectiveness of the unit is piss-poor. This is true only for Galaxies if there is a smaller, faster, and more accessible dropship as recommended above. Putting 8-10 guys in a galaxy, especially one of the gunship variants is not an efficient use of manpower. How many tanks or attack aircraft could you instead have on the battlefield? How many assault buggies? Piling 10 guys into a single vehicle is just not a very smart thing to do either. The premise of these vehicles is that you also need to have ~10 guys to use one. If you dont, the vehicle is pretty much useless. Imagine a squad of 10. You could pile all in a galaxy/Sunderer, or you could pile 6 into one of the smaller dropships described above and have 3-4 escort aircraft. Its a much deadlier force and a better use of the manpower. And if a

single plane goes down you dont lose the whole squad and become a comedy kill.

If there is a light dropship the necessity of Gals & Sunderers no longer exists. The concept is good but the way the game evolved they were a rare sight to begin with and if there are more efficient versions of them (delis, light dropships), then they dont really have a purpose.

4.7 Tanks and Mowing

Early in PlanetSide it was possible to take a tank and literally mow down infantry. A lot of players complained about this, and I think it is due to a lack of education or simply sheer stupidity. I lived in that era and I drove a tank in that era. I mowed a lot of people and I avoided getting mowed many times. It was part of the game and an important one. It was also easily avoidable if a player stuck to cover. There were issues with hitboxes and client-side hit detection that made a player think they were safe but still die due to a mow. This was not a design problem with mowing it was a technical problem with hit detection. Vehicles are supposed to be efficient killing machines. Thats the point. They push a line; they make progress in a battle. Infantry should be at a disadvantage against a tank. It makes sense the tank is powered by 2 and took resources & time to grab and bring to the front, and the reward is better killing power over someone who didnt pull a tank. Moreover, a heavy tank barreling down at you means you get the hell out of the way. The tank was able to provide great value to the battlefield by suppressing infantry, controlling open lanes and literally plowing their way in. Once an enemy is successfully whittled down to masses of infantry the Tank is the final weapon to seal them into a base. Once the base falls infantry will spawn at a new base, get vehicles, and then the cycle begins anew. When infantry dont have efficient vehicles that counter them you end up with long stalemates at a base where an infantry zerg is able to hold off vehicles for an extended period of time and the war stagnates. These become boring fights as no progress is possible without extreme lag fests. Eventually Mowing was nerfed to where tanks would slow way down when they hit an enemy and unless they were already wounded or going very fast the hit would not be lethal. This sort of hand holding is ridiculous and detrimental to the game. Because mowing was nerfed it led to some lame behaviors. For one, a tank became less threatening to infantry. And because one rarely died due to being run over by a tank and hitting a player slowed a tank way down (making it more vulnerable to aircraft & AV weaponry) you would have infantry intentionally throwing themselves in front of tanks to slow them down, only so they could bust out their anti-tank weapons and kill them up close where the turrets had a harder time hitting them. This sort of behavior is completely the opposite of how it should be. While a talented player can and should be able to kill a tank, that player should be doing so in the correct way utilizing terrain and cover, not abusing anti-mow mechanics. A PlanetSide sequel needs to bring back mowing, at least for TANKS. Light vehicles and things like AMS should not be mow vehicles, but a tank absolutely should. One

of the reasons mowing was nerfed was due to AMS, which by their sheer mass had a great mowing potential and a lot of hit points. I think this was more of a code issue because I have a suspicion that mowing was tied to mass of the object, not specific vehicles and it might not have been easy to allow mowing for tanks but not for AMS. This is just

lame and there needs to be ways to adjust for mowing effectiveness on a pervehicle basis. Tanks should be able to plow right through infantry not just because it makes sense, but because it teaches infantry to move to cover and to think about how they move around and not just run out in the open where they ask for it. Just because people want to run in straight lines out in the open with no cover does not mean you need to nerf the game to make something utterly stupid into a viable tactic. Terrain matters, positioning matters, and picking places for AMS where tanks wont plow your infantry is part of the strategy. If they want to run down the street in Spain with bulls chasing after them let them. Darwin will have an award for them in the spawn tube. Also, to prevent abuse by players pulling tanks and sending them out without gunners just to mow, the collision damage the tank does should be modified by the presence of a gunner. So tanks that do not have gunners do significantly reduced collision damage.

5. Weapons & Infantry

At the core of the PS experience was infantry. Vehicles made PS unique, but at the end of the day it was the infantry that took the bases and anchored assaults. When a player got out of a vehicle they were infantry and vehicles were simply the means to an end.

5.1 Infantry Rock-Paper-Scissors

Infantry R-P-S had several forms. The first of which was two main types of damage in the game Anti- Infantry damage and Anti-Vehicle damage. MAX units were a fantastic design. The served as indoor-armor for infantry and a great job as breachers/anchors. Where infantry was squishy, MAX was the opposite. The critical thing that MAX added to the infantry game was the need for AntiInfantry and Anti-Armor weaponry INDOORS. Since most weapons were not designed for both (some exceptions, like the lashereugh), players had to be skilled in how they managed both threats. Example you go into a CC room, theres two MAX and three infantry crammed in there. If you go in guns blazing you will die horribly because you dont have a weapon that can kill them all (again, exception lasher, it really needs to not be in PS 2 for reasons such as this). You had other tools, such as grenades to help soften them up or root them out of there and that was all part of tactics. A good tactic for infantry squads was to have a few players in MAX suits. This kept your opposition honest they had to pack anti-armor and when faced they had to deal with both threats. When they had their anti-armor weapons out they were vulnerable to your infantry. When they had anti-infantry weapons out they were vulnerable to your MAX. MAX were clearly designed as counter-units to three different types:

Anti-Infantry Anti-Armor (or anti-other-MAX)

Anti-Aircraft (infantry-based AA platform).

AA MAX were a little different and weak in indoor fights but still served the purpose of meat shield for the squishy infantry. Again this is an area where MAX pilots were often frowned upon by the infantry elite because their weapons were one-dimensional and designed to kill them, but they were important to the richness of PlanetSide. Truly elite infantry could deal with them without whining. A really good aspect to MAX was their relationship with infantry. MAX could not repair themselves or even open locked doors, so they relied on infantry for proper support. Infantry had to repair/heal MAX. This was a perfect symbiotic relationship, with the MAX being the breachers & armor, and the infantry in return keeping them in top shape. The second Infantry R-P-S goodness was in the weapon design itself. Heavy-assault balance was something that plagued PS for a long time, so Im not going to herald that as widespread success. Its something that needs to be carefully considered in the future but it is hard to get it right while still giving individual factions their themes and identities. However, you did have close-range weapons, long range weapons, and weapons designed for Anti- Armor, Anti-Infantry, and some that were designed for a little of both. The basic guiding principle is that weapons good against both are weaker than weapons only good against one or the other. It takes quite a few frag grenades to kill a player and more to kill a max. Compared to a decimator on a max or a few well-placed shotgun blasts to infantry, the frag grenades were not efficient. They did however fill a tactical niche to help root out campers. The rocklet was another example of a weapon that did a little of both. It was designed for longer range than frag grenades. The main problem with the rocklet was that it also had a burst fire mode that allowed it to insta-gib players. This goes against the principle of not being great against everything. It was toned down after a while but in the early days it was used as a gib tool.

5.2 Infantry Types

You also had Armor that had tradeoffs. The armor design for infantry was quite good. 3 basic armors: - Infiltration Light (no) armor, small inventory, high speed, no main weapons cloaking - Agile Medium armor, medium inventory, medium speed, 1 main weapon - Reinforced heavy armor, large inventory, slow, 2 main weapons, could only drive a few vehicles. Everyone was certed to use Agile but you had to specialize to get one of the other two. The speed/stealth/firepower tradeoff is always a good one, but the suits were worth their cost to those who used them.

These types added great variety and tactical options to the game. Reinforced were your heavy infantry grunts, while Agile were your common drivers & pilots. Infiltration was unique in PS and somewhat undervalued. If anything Id like to have seen a little more inventory space for infiltrators.

5.3 MAX
MAX were a core part of PS and for the most part fairly well balanced in the AI/AV variants. The AA variants always had issues. MAX filled a vital role of being indoor armor. This forced infantry to carry both types of weapons or be at a severe disadvantage when facing a MAX. It also gave a tactical reason to include MAX it forced your enemy to switch their damage types to deal with the max. Since the AI maxes were very good at what they did the MAX was usually the priority target. While they switched friendly infantry could mow them down. In this role the TR maxes sort of lacked since the NC had shields they could use to absorb the hits and the VS maxes could jump up to the ceiling and make themselves harder to hit. TR maxes had no such option, though they could lockdown and try to kill their attackers faster and rely on their friendly infantry to stop them from using cover. MAXes were also a unit that was penalized by 3 person camera existing. 3 person allowed defenders to see the MAX coming, switch to an AV weapon, and then pop-out and shoot, all while being behind cover while the max had to expose himself in order to advance. The switch-time factor was made easier with the early warning/no exposure. I dont have much to say about Maxes other than they were important and pretty well balanced. The TR Burster Max was the perfect AA design. It required some skill to lead the target and that became more important the further away the target was. They could do more dps by sacrificing mobility, allowing them to better kill but also vulnerable to being killed. It was a good design and Bursters required more skill of any of the other AAs for this reason.
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5.3.1 MAX Ability Balance TR Lockdown The TR ability to go stationary and have a massive increase in firepower was good for the theme of TR and gave them a strong defensive Max. The thing I would be careful about is ensuring they are balanced without this ability in mind in a dpssense. Lockdown, like shields and jump jets is a perk, not a limitation they should have to work around. The set-up/tear-down time & the

stationary requirement were good tradeoffs for the benefit. Though some complained about this I thought it was a good design. The complaints arised from the fact that NC & VS maxes could use their abilities offensively, while the TR

could only use theirs defensively. I always viewed TR maxes as indoor anchors the massive dps increase made assaulting places with them hard, though it also made them sitting ducks. NC Shields The shielded NC maxes were useful as offensive breachers. The trick was that they couldnt shoot and have their shield up at the same time so they had to sense damage coming and put up the shield. This added a good sense of skill to using the ability and the maxes in general. Good Design! VS Jump Jets The Jump jets fit the theme of the VS very nicely and the added mobility was benefit enough. However, the fact that the VS max could both shoot and jump simultaneously created some imbalances and lame behavior. VS maxes often used jump jets to avoid damage which is a fine use but theyd also be killing their target while doing so. Consider the Starfire (AA) max for example. When faced down by a Reaver, the Starfire could jump straight up and avoid the rockets while killing the Reaver. No other AA max had that ability and it made starfires particularly lethal. This was also in addition to the height that a Starfire could jump up to, giving it better positions on aircraft as well. Theres no reason why the VS max needs to shoot while its jump-jets are going. The NC maxes cant shoot with the shield up, and the TR maxes have to deal with lockdown setup/teardown time. This is a balance issue that really should be fixed. The height VS maxes can jump to might also be a bit too high.

5.4 Weapons
1) Standard Assault a. Empire-Specific Pistols. With the exception of the Scatter-pistol all of the empire specific pistols exhibited the same characteristics. The NC one was like a mini-sweeper in the end. While a cool theme, balancing pistols would be a lot easier if the NC pistol conformed to normal pistol characteristics. The Spear pistol was more in line with what I thought would be the correct NC pistol - a Gauss pistol with a lower RoF, smaller magazine (compared to the Repeater), but higher damage per-shot. This puts it sort of like the scat-pistol in functionality but better at range and requiring more aim up close. It would be the spiritual equivalent to a magnum revolver. Pistols were cool, but I wanted to see them with more DPS overall. In most games pistols are balanced by having more killing power but usually reduced range and magazine. These relegate them to close-quarters/backup weapon duties. And of course, who wouldnt want to see dual- pistol wielding in PlanetSide? A splash of John Woo is

like bacon it makes everything better! b. Suppressor. This weapon really didnt suppress anything and usually served as token defense until you reached an equipment terminal. I would have liked to see this weapon beefed up just a little so it might be tempting to use and at least somewhat passable as respectable.

2)

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c. AMP. The AMP was more like an auto-pistol than a SMG, but for no cert cost can you really complain? Favored by infiltrators ganking, nearly every shot had to count if you wanted a kill from it. The overall balance seemed about right. Medium Assault a. Empire-Specific Rifles. These were eventually put to be just about right, but the idea is that they have good medium-range effectiveness and decent in both short and long range. Its a good allaround weapon choice much like an assault rifle might be in any other game. I cover these below in more detail. b. Sweeper. This weapon served as an official close-range weapon of the Medium Assault weapons. It sort of went against the purpose of MA but it did give anyone with MA a reasonable close-range weapon with which to stand up to Heavy Assault in close quarters. The main characteristic of this weapon is that it had a slower RoF than the Jackhammer and did slightly less damage but had a tighter cone-of-fire. It was more effective a little further out and well-placed sweeper shots could be very effective. This rd is a weapon that benefitted from 3 person camera since you could use it to mitigate its disadvantage (range). c. Punisher. We all have a place in our hearts for the Punisher as a comedy kill. Its damage was terrible, its accuracy bad, but it had a single-use grenade that if used in conjunction with the rifle-portion of it could lead to decent kills. Overall though you rarely saw it used. It should be beefed up a bit and made to be a tad less damage than the Pulsar in exchange for its grenade-launcher capabilities. Heavy Assault a. Empire-Specific HA. These weapons are discussed in more detail below. Efficient infantry killing machines. b. Maelstrom. This weapon had a cool concept but was too good as a skill-less spam weapon. In its primary fire mode it wasnt as good as the other HAs so this weapon was often just used as a super-grenade launcher for clearing out hot rooms like spawn rooms or packed generators. PS lived without this weapon and I think it can do so again. Special Assault a. Rocklet. The rocklet was a unique weapon in that it was good against both infantry and vehicles simultaneously. This made it a good weapon indoors against combined-arms of max & infantry. The major downside is its alt fire mode turned it into a gib-weapon. Gib weapons are bad for PlanetSide, and as long as the gib-mode exists the rocklet will suffer from damage nerfs and make the primary mode far less interesting. I would propose balancing this weapon on primary mode and get rid of or redesign the alt-fire. One idea is to truly make it a jack-of-all-trades weapon and let alt fire switch between Anti-Aircraft

Flak rounds and normal rocklet mode. b. Thumper. A great all-around weapon, particularly for infantry suppression. It could also be a grief-magnet if used in a base that was too-hot. Plasma rounds had a bigger radius and had a burn effect. Frag grenades like Rocklet rounds were good against all types of target but did reduced damage and explosion radius (as they should). And of course jammer grenades were great for clearing minefields or taking a vehicle out of the fight.

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All of these grenades were also available to infantry though at a reduced range and ammo capacity. c. Radiator. This was a weapon that wasnt particularly useful. It could have some clever uses but mostly it just gave you grief due to misfires or a friendly running in front of the shot. Its a good concept but the implementation wasnt right. Id like to see it back in a redesigned form. Anti-vehicle a. Empire-specific AV. Well designed concepts along the themes. Phoenix was a very fun weapon. Lancer took some practice to use well, and the striker was neat but cheesy due to implementation. Strikers main fault is that it was too good against Aircraft, while the other two AV weapons were generally only good against close aircraft (as it should be). I have a solution to the striker in a later section. AV in general used to have few shots associated with it. Over time the ammo boxes were tripled and this turned AV into spam weapons. As a result, the armor of vehicles had to be buffed. I think PS had the right balance when AV weapons were low-in-ammo, forcing players to carefully aim their shots and not just spam them toward whatever moved. b. Decimator. Originally in the Special-assault category, the Decimator as a dumb fire AV weapon. The concept is that since the Empirespecific AV has some form of guidance/faster travel time, the Decimator makes up for it with more damage per-shot. The Deci also had a different ammo style. Instead of carrying the weapon & then having a separate box of ammo, the Deci had 3 shots in its tube and no external ammo. This made it a great weapon for Agile users who were tight on space. They could swap their weapon and gain instant AV, but only 3 shots. This was not increased when the rest of the AV weaponry capacity was buffed, and the design of the NC phoenix made the Decimator somewhat obsolete in that empire. This weapon should have at least another shot added if AV is kept in its current form. Sniper Rifles a. Bolt-Driver. This weapon was used a lot in early PS but quickly lost its value as the typical engagement range in PS shortened due to heavy aircraft use. Sniper rifles in other games have head-shots as skill differentiators. In PS this was not the case, and the bolt driver had both inaccuracy when moving the reticule and lag-time on the bullet. This is not unusual for weapons of this type in other games, and this weapon and all snipers should be redesigned a little to be more like classic sniper rifles. This also means that they should be doing more damage for a successful hit. Overall with a vehicle-heavy world the single-shot sniper rifle is fairly obsolete but might have its place if it can strike the correct balance. b. Heavy Scout Rifle. This moves more along the scale toward Battle Rifle from sniper rifle. If it handled like a Medium-assault weapon but had the slow semi-auto rate of fire it would be a solid weapon. In its

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current design its terrible. Its also a weapon given as an annual service award and it really shouldnt be. Put it in the Sniper Rifle category. These weapons should probably only be 2 cert points instead of 3. Random-Assault (weapons added later in PS that werent in the early days)

a.

Dragon. I didnt have much experience with this weapon but the concept was OK, but it overlapped with the function of Heavy-Assault. If anything it should be a generic heavy assault weapon. Fire wasnt well done in PS, but with a better engine it might be a good weapon concept. I also like it as a generic HA. It might also be entirely unnecessary and have balance issues if it was too good. b. Scorpion. An interesting concept but I never saw it used. It just wasnt a practical weapon for PS. The idea fit well into Battlefield 2142 as an assault weapon attachment but not so great for PS. The concept of the weapon is mainly that of a stalemate- breaker. Grenade launchers also serve this purpose; the scorpion is just a different delivery mechanism. If anything this could be a variation on the Rocklet. Its just too specialized of a weapon to justify its own existence. Im sure I left out a few of the smaller weapons. They werent particularly vital to the game.

5.5 3rd Person Camera

3 person camera was a critical part of PlanetSide gaming and affected it in many ways. However, I think it led to some pretty lame tactics and behaviors. Often times rd players used 3 person to hide behind a wall and then jump out and gib a target. It was also used to see around corners when attacking. A lot of fights came down to rd two sides 3 personing behind bends in corridors. Having played many games since rd then like the Battlefield series I think 3 person camera really detracts from the game. I believe PlanetSide 2 should not have a 3 person camera option (except for special abilities or remote- vision tools or stuff of that nature). It does open the door to neat utility items that might grant that same behavior, like throwing a camera-ball out into a hallway, giving you vision without exposing yourself. That has value. Giving that ability to every playernot so much. Other great shooter games dont need it and I think PS would be better off without it. It also removes a lot of balance problems with instant-hit weapons like shotguns since the primary weakness of such weapons (range) is compensated by rd 3 person. It allows you to stay protected and hidden and jump out when the enemy is in the optimal range. This, more than anything else, is what led to the whining about the Jackhammer in the early days of PS. The Jack was only part of the rd problem 3 person was the problem because it removed the main weakness of rd the Jack. 3 person also made grenades and grenade launchers more effective because again you could spam them and hide when the enemy returned fire. rd Grenades were also an effective counter to 3 person, but because they could see the grenadier it was usually only successful in getting the pillar-humper to run away to the next pillar. It was a cat & mouse game that doesnt need to be in the game and degrades it. 3
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person might have a place for driving vehicles, mainly to make it easier to see

friendlies and not accidentally run over them. There were also many random obstacles in PS that would send any vehicle into a full stop. Hitting one during heavy fighting was almost guaranteed death. Keeping 3 person for vehicle driving seems like a good idea, though it wouldnt be bad to experiment without it there too. If tanks and buggies can go over small rocks then it might not be necessary.
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5.6 Weapon Balance

Weapon balance is something PS did very poorly in general, particularly in balancing cross-faction weapons with each other. Im not sure why and I dont care to speculate, but instead focus on how it should be done. Consider the case of World of Warcraft. Blizzard has many different classes, each with different specializations, and yet all still come pretty damn close to being balanced in terms of damage output. They achieve this by having a certain goal for the amount of damage they want each class to do. Similarly, for a game like PlanetSide the correct approach for balancing weapons is to start with a key question - What do you want it to do? For any given weapon, for a specific situation you should know how much damage-per-second you want that weapon to do at a given range. Once you know that its simply a matter of tweaking the numbers until you get the DPS you want with the other characteristics you are after. This is the general approach to balancing any given weapon. Basic weapon balance for range is rather logical: MA = Sniper = decent, MA = King, bad Sniper = decent = MA = Sniper decent, King The ways to achieve these are mostly through rate-of-fire, cone-of-fire, and damage, but depending on the weapon there can be a lot of other options. Short: Medium: Long: HA = King, HA = decent, HA = bad,

5.6.1 Heavy Assault Balance HA balance was possibly the most discussed topic of PlanetSide. Before I go into how to properly balance these weapons, it is important to understand the intent of Heavy Assault. Its purpose is to be the efficient means of killing infantry in a close-combat setting. This implies: 1) 2) HA has the highest DPS of any infantry weapon at close ranges. HA has the lowest DPS of any infantry weapon at long ranges.

Simple enough, right? You want a weapon that is brutally effective up close but isnt your desired weapon for longer ranged fights.

MCG The MCG is the weapon the other HA weapons should be balanced around. The reason is because it is the weapon that has the fewest tweaking options. The main problem this weapon had was either it was

too good or complete crap. Early on it was crap, later it became the best of the HA weapons. It also had a side-effect of being good at long range, which violates the design of HA. The reason for this was that it had a low initial cone-of-fire and if the user of the weapon tapped the fire button hed get a lower rate of fire but fairly accurate bullets which made it function much like a medium-assault weapon. Another issue was that its bullets shared the same characteristics as the MediumAssault weapon. Adjusting the MCG has the following options Rate of Fire Initial Cone-of-Fire & Max Cone-of-Fire Bloom-rate Bullet speed Damage per-bullet Damage degradation over time

Getting this weapon balanced is firstly around ensuring it is never as accurate as a MA weapon. The initial cone of fire should simply be bigger. It almost doesnt need a bloom rate but if it does such a rate should be slow so it favors burst-fire to add a little skill to the usage of the weapon. Additionally, increasing bullet degradation + cone of fire should get the weapon to the correct damage at various ranges easily enough. Balancing it for close range combat is very simple since bullet damage + RoF gives you a very good dps calculation. Cone miss-rate + bullet degradation balances it out over range. It should be trivial to balance this weapon such that it is the core of what a HA weapon should be and then balance the others around it. Jackhammer The jack was nerfed many times because it was too good at close range. It was the only instant-hit HA weapon, which exacerbated balance complaints. It was also a weapon that benefitted tremendously from the 3 person camera. Another problem was that it had a downside of being crap at any sort of range, so with the typical changes to the Jack resulting in less damage it got even worse at longer ranges. This balance approach just tweaked the overall throughput of the weapon but didnt actually address the real issue - The main design problem with this weapon was that it was too far to the extreme. The triple-shot feature, while unique, further complicated things for this weapon. At the root of the issue was the fact that it was a shotgun it was intended to have a wide spread. The failure in balancing this weapon was that it has a lot more factors to it than the designers were utilizing. The best idea I had seen about the Jack was making it similar to how the Scat Max works change out the triple-shot for rotating barrels that offer different rates of fire and spreads. As the range extends the rate of fire decreases. To adjust the Jack the following options are available: CoF
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Number of pellets Damage of each pellet Damage Degradation over range Rate-of-Fire CoF & RoF changes for each barrel

What having the different rotating barrels does is give the designers a lot more flexibility with the weapon by allowing adjustment of CoF & RoF independently of damage. This allows it to be more easily balanced without sacrificing its range and also brings the Jacks effective range to be more in line with other HAs. Damage degradation over range + damage per-pellet balances the weapon at range. The main difference between this weapon and the MCG is that it will have a wider Cone-of-Fire at close range. Having fixed CoF points allows calibration of the damage to the desired ranges. The fact that the wider CoF also translates to more missed pellets should be accounted for in the damage of the weapon. This is where balancing the Jack becomes difficult because it makes it more lethal if all the pellets hit in a single shot. Therefore rate-of-fire is probably the best way to balance that fact, not pellet damage.

Lasher

Lasher is the most difficult HA to balance. In a way it is sort of like a cross between the other two. It has direct-hit bullets, but also the lash-effect. The most distinct problem with the weapon is the lash itself and damage degradation. The Lasher was often used to spam hallways and even those hiding behind corners got lashed and took damage. If you got enough lashers it became a wave of death that was unlike any of the other HAs. Worse, it was actually quite useful at medium ranges with this property. The Lasher doesnt seem like it has a lot of adjustment options but it does: CoF Damage per-orb Size-of-orb Damage Degradation of orbs Speed of Orbs Lash damage Lash damage degradation Lash range Lash limit Rate of Fire Rate of Lashing

Thats a lot of levers! Small wonder it was a difficult weapon to get right. There are two things that I dont think the Lasher actually had in PS lash damage degradation, Lash limit, and damage degradation of orbs. I think for most weapons the PS devs used cone-of-fire to balance, so they were effectively balancing by miss rate, though I may be mistaken. Lash Limit is a concept I have for the Lasher that limits the lash times. So for example if the lash limit was 1, for any given orb it would only lash 1 time, to 1 person. If it was 2 it could lash two players. The Lash Limit helps prevent its use as a spam weapon down hallways because it will only lash one person. Moreover, it adds skill to the weapon as the user needs to at least try to hit the correct target or the lash damage may be spread out among other attackers and put him at a disadvantage. Damage Degradation should also apply to the lash long range hallways the lash could lose its effect entirely. Since the Lasher is an energy weapon, this concept of the energy being dissipated shouldnt be all that far-fetched. When it exits the weapon it has a lot of energy but rapidly loses it, making it a close-range weapon. I believe the best way to balance this weapon is to try to make it similar to the MCG with slower, but larger bullets at a lower rate of fire. Since theyre slower theyre easier to miss, thats where the lash comes in. The lash should compensate for a near miss by doing a portion of the damage. If its limited to only one person then it limits the use as a spam weapon. Given that, the lasher becomes sort of like a mini-chain-shotgun. If you take the Lasher to extremes, such as removing the lash effect you basically have an MCG. If you take the lash to the extreme its a lot like a shotgun blast. The trick is getting the happy medium.

It is a good weapon concept but one that is inherently difficult to balance, but it can be approached the same way as the others. What is the intended DPS? From there the other numbers can be tweaked to

help achieve that. Orb-size and speed isnt DPS, but it does factor into accuracy of the weapon, so as accuracy improves the lash should decrease.

5.6.2 Medium-Assault Balance MA is hard to balance. The empires need the MA to be functionally equivalent but still have a unique look-and-feel. Each Empire has a theme that is intended to be represented by the MA weapons. NC = Hard-hitting TR = Suppressive VS = Versatile

Cycler The cycler was a fun weapon. The concept is lots of bullets and high RoF. By definition it should have had more DPS, right? I think the correct answer is no. It should have done the same dps; it just does it in smaller increments at a higher rate of fire. This gives it that suppressive feel and also allows the user to miss a few shots and spray down their opponents. So the advantage of the cycler is not damage, nor versatility. Its advantage is that it is more forgiving and due to the large magazine allows the user to mow down more targets per-reload. It makes up for accuracy by putting more bullets out there, which is more or less the TR theme. It should have a moderately wide cone but be slow to bloom.

Gauss The theme of the gauss is high-damage shots. The downside is a smaller magazine and a worse CoF bloom. If it is strictly more damage-per-shot and smaller RoF/magazine then it is at a disadvantage vs. the Cycler and Pulsar for its magazine & CoF bloom disadvantages. In a straight up shoot, the cycler will win due to its better suppressive nature, much larger magazine, and better cone-of-fire. The main problem with the gauss is that it has too many disadvantages for its advantage. And if the goal is to have the same DPS for these weapons the Gauss will fall short. Therefore to compensate for a lower RoF and a lower Magazine, the Gauss should do more damage per-shot and have a tighter CoF so it can be used more accurately. So it has a small cone but moderate bloom. Also the Gauss should have about a 35 round magazine. 30 for the typical engagement are just too small. The value of the Gauss with the above concept is that is a weapon designed for accurate use and rewards accurate use with hard hits that drop the target. Its downside is a smaller magazine and the smaller RoF means the shots have to count and you have no room for suppressive fire. It makes it more of a defensive weapon and one good at longer distance firefights.

Pulsar VS versatility came in the form of a quick-switch between Normal and ArmorPiercing rounds. This was actually a tremendous advantage against MAX, and the only way to balance not having to carry AP rounds or make the ammunition switch is to make the DPS a bit lower than the others in that mode. Thats the tradeoff instant-on vs. more dps. However the time spent switching ammunition is dps time lost, so it should balance out. The VS who needs AP in a pinch hits one button and goes to town, while the TR/NC who needs AP in a pinch might either not be carrying it at all or loses dps time while switching out ammo. The other advantage of instanton is simply being able to handle threats of multiple types simultaneously. This is a huge advantage of the Pulsar and should effectively be its great value. Other than the quick-switch option the Pulsar should and was in the middle of the road. Moderate RoF, Moderate-sized magazine, and Moderate Damage. It should be the easiest to balance since it is intended to be the average gun. It should do more damage than the cycler, but not as much as the gauss, and it should be more suppressive than the Guass but not as much as the cycler. An all-around solid weapon. Its important not to factor in the instant-on ability of the Pulsar into its normal damage. The reason is because the typical engagement is infantry vs. infantry and you want them to be competitive. The instant-on AP is a lesser used ability and therefore you balance its power by adjusting the AP damage instead. 5.6.3 Striker Balance Striker had a unique balance issue with it being the only lock-on Infantry AV weapon. It made it an extremely effective anti-aircraft weapon. Its problems were rooted in one key property the lock guaranteed the hit. The problem with this is that it made hitting long-range targets easier than hitting close-range targets. This is entirely counter-intuitive. It also made it easy to shoot down aircraft. To address the issue of lock-on weaponry I point you to Battlefield Bad Company 2s M136 AT4 anti-tank missile. This weapon had a tracking system that assisted the warhead in hitting its target. The important point is that it did not guarantee a hit! The weapon worked by firing a shot and then holding the cursor over the target. The missile will direct itself toward where the cursor is pointing. There is no real lock in this case, only guidance assistance. The key balance implication of this is that the weapon itself requires skill to use. Since the lock does not guarantee a hit it means that the operator must lead the target if it is moving and then guide the missile in. What this will do for PS is give the striker a means to be laser-guided missile. It will be very difficult to hit aircraft with it, and long-range targets require more care. This is how it should be. The advantage the Striker could have over the Phoenix is a higher rate of fire and less vulnerability to the operator while firing.

5.7 Infantry Anti-Air Weapons

An inconsistency in PS was infantry-carried Anti-Aircraft weapons. TR had the Striker, which was a very good personal-anti-aircraft weapon. However the other two empires lacked this type of weapon. At some point in PS the Rocklet was given Flak ammunition as an option, and this gave all three empires a token weapon against Aircraft. The Rocklet wasnt great against aircraft but it was enough to get one to leave the area. Anti-Aircraft need great care when given to infantry. Low-altitude slow-moving aircraft should be attackable, and I believe the AV weapons should fill this role. As stated above the Striker is the only weapon that stood out as being too-good against aircraft. The Lock-on Weapon balance topic above should address it. The rocklet seems like the right balance that infantry should have against aircraft. Given the balance-by- altitude approach described in chapter 4, I believe AV weapons should be sufficient for balancing infantry against aircraft at low altitudes. The short-range nature of the Rocklet fits right along with that.

6. Landscape: Bases & Towers, and Caves

6.1 Base Design
Base design was nailed so well by the PS devs. Honestly, its amazing that battles in PS Beta were fun and so were battles 5 years later. The layout of the base was simply spot on. Walls seemed outdated at first in the PS world but they were very important from a tactical perspective. Base design was varied, with control consoles being at different points in the base, and the spawn room always being in the bowels of the base. Some bases were easier to take than others. Having variations on each base type would be a great thing. They dont have to be huge, but making slightly different bases in a few significant ways would mix up the fights.

The most significant thing about what made the PS bases great was how they had different objectives and points of interest Generator room power to the entire base and one way to kick defenders out. The tactic was often frowned upon by snobbish players who wanted a kill farm, but those who wanted progress took advantage of it because it got the job done. Defenders need to defend all parts of a base, not just the spawn room and CC. Spawn room self-explanatory. It had 3 exits, and usually a lower area. Good design.

Control Console the way to take control of the base

Vehicle terminals the production center of the base, crippling it slowed down vehicle production and could lead to a tactical advantage in pushing the base defenders inside permanently. NTU Silo where the power got replenished. Great concept. Command Room central terminal for functions added later, still a cool concept to have a war- room of sorts thats different from the computer mainframe core of the facility.

These were all logical and great points of interest that made bases interesting and added much tactics to them. This was unique to PlanetSide and no other game has done this to-date. Conquerable bases with unique points of interest is still novel. Some fantasy games have had conquerable keeps but they didnt have the depth and tactics of the PlanetSide bases. There were 3 ways to attack a base - Drain it destroy all parts of the facility until it goes neutral and the enemy loses it. - Hack it take the base over for yourself. - Disable it knock out the generator and deny its base benefit to connected bases or sever lattice link to important facility benefits. And 2 types of hacks - Normal hack 15 min timer (Hack & Hold) - LLU 15 min timer to run an object to an adjacent friendly base (capture the flag) LLU was a great addition and it was used on about 20% of bases. This was a good number and made for very interesting tactical options. LLU bases were best for long lattice links, as they made it possible for an empire to take the base far away very quickly but it had a cost you had to escort the LLU which surely received a swarm of aircraft to it. Great concept. LLU bases should be placed on long-lattice links and makes for a great twist in continental warfare. Another option is to mix up which bases are LLU bases periodically. As you can tell Im a huge fan of randomizing a lot of PlanetSide properties to keep things fresh. Taking out the power was usually risky. It offered double protection against the spawn room being repaired since two places needed to be repaired but it also meant the invaders couldnt hack terminals, pull out Max, or resupply. Also if the base was hotly contested not being able to get the power back up after the hack went through could lead to it changing hands again rapidly. Generally speaking it was much easier to defend a base than it was to take one. All you needed to do was repair the spawn room and it usually led to the base being retaken. But the dynamics of the different points of interest in the base kept the game very objective-oriented and assault was methodical to be successful. The formula for resecure was textbook control the air, take the tower, find the AMS(s), get tubes/power up, success. Elite infantry would often just bail aircraft by

the back door and sneak in and go straight for the tubes. It was effective as usually zergs stopped paying attention and spent the last 5 -

10 minutes of a hack standing around shooting each other and didnt notice the tubes being repaired or other people being killed nearby. Diffusion of responsibility ensured a small force could get a resecure in out from under the nose of a much larger force. My outfit and many others did it on a regular basis. Still, it was hard to attack and thats the way it should be. Outfits good at attack are prized possessions. Overall base design was way better than just standing by a capture flag or something else of that nature. It was a good design! An overview of bases and design properties follows.

Bio Lab Bio labs were the easiest due to having the power generator on the roof and the attacking force being able to control access to it with vehicles (aircraft could protect entrance to the generator room). This is not a terribly bad thingif it were not for that simple generator design Bio labs would have been the hardest bases to take because there are essentially only 2 chokepoints in the base the main stairwell and the back door corridor and area. So having that generator up there was a way to compensate for an otherwise very defensible base. A good design decision! However, I think an inside route into the generator, possibly from underneath it would have been good. The defenders would need to control the main room in order to use it which still makes it challenging but they could still get in there without running a gauntlet of vehicle fire. The bio lab benefit seemed.weak. I think it should have something else going on there. They were also the most prolific bases and the smallest. Amp Station Amp stations were unique, with good open combat in the main room and back door. Fairly defensible from the inside, but like the Bio lab they had an external weakness the control room was on the top. This made it vulnerable to air drops. It was a little better than the bio lab though because you had two entrances, but it was also easier for tanks to shut down those entrances. The base benefit was good. I think it was better than most probably gave it credit for since it gave all vehicles survivability bonuses and auto-repair when in a friendly SOI. Interlink Facility Also known as the inter-farm. The radar base benefit from these, combined with a good defensive layout made these a campers dream base. They were always a place where campers could rack up lots of kills, and no matter what went on in the rest of the continent you always got the base benefit. Long corridors and both the generator and the control console were deep in the bowels of the base. The layout was a bit unique and there were pathways where if one part of the facility was

breached attackers could reach the generator and knock it out. By far it was the hardest base to take for all of the

above reasons. Such a good defensive base should probably have been one of the other benefits but it didnt really fit any other base style. It could use a revamp, or some counters to the interlink benefit could be introduced in the form of electronic warfare so the radar couldnt always be relied upon. Dropship Center A vital base for the repair-benefit. This was easily the most important benefit for taking a continent and so the Dropship center was strategically very important to take. Denying the enemy repair benefits while giving your team such benefits helped the continental war tremendously. Remember the continental war was all about economics and vehicle production. Repair benefit kept vehicles out there longer so it was a big swing to whichever empire controlled it. This also made the repair benefit of owning the Battle Islands extremely important. TR on Emerald caught on to this soon after battle islands and owned the battle island most of the time. Strategically it was very impactful. I would suggest toning down the repair benefit a little so it isnt such a huge deciding factor, or giving all bases a significantly reduced repair benefit. Having at least 2 dropship centers per continent (but not on all continents) would also help alleviate the problem and mix things up. Tactically, the Dropship center was basically a modified Interlink Facility. It had the same topside design with a little modification. The underbelly was a bit different but for the most part the bases were very similar. Its good to have variants on a base design and I think more such variants would be good. The DS Center also featured a separate Vehicle terminal and Air Terminal. This made it the 2 best base for production since both air and ground units could be produced simultaneously while Amp Stations, Interlinks, and Bio Labs all could only produce one unit of any type at a time. Two terminals basically meant 2 x production in most cases since many players had air vehicles. Between repair and production the DS was probably the best base in the game to control and defend, at least from the outside (interlink had the best inside-defense). Tech Plant Tech plants were cool bases, and my favorite. The layout was unusual, but neat. Tech plants were the major factories of PS and offered an important benefit with high tech vehicles. With 2 protected air terms and 1 protected ground terminal it was very difficult for any other base to compete with the level of production a tech plant could spit out. It was also fairly defensible due to the air terms being close to the CC players running or waiting to get aircraft would run right by the CC instead of in the opposite direction. It also had the most entrances of any base, which made it both a difficult to attack and a difficult to defend base. It was difficult to attack due to the high amount of production lots of vehicles could come out of a tech plant in a short period of time so as long as the fight was in the courtyard or beyond the tech plant had the advantage. Once the courtyard was overtaken the defenders had a hard time holding all the chokepoints. The air term room had two entrances, which also was
nd

adjacent to the CC. Air-drops were an easy way to gain a foothold and hack the base while defenders were still spawning. It was not uncommon to take a defended tech plant while the defenders were still actively spawning in it. The back

door always existed, as well as the front door, and the vehicle bay since it was interior to the base also provided an entrance. It amounted to having to defend 4-5 different locations simultaneously. This base was also particularly vulnerable to having its generator blown out from under it. With so many players running out the vehicle terms, so many entrances, and with the generator the only thing in the basement it meant that any cloaker who made it into the base could rig it without being detected and then throw a jammer and knock it out instantly. This was a great tactic and I hope it returns. From a continental perspective, Tech plants often formed the crux of the conquest plan. You needed one, and you wanted to take away the enemys tech plant. Most continents had 3, some had 2. Tech plant placement & dropship placement has a profound impact on conquest routes on a continent and how effective an attack vector is.

6.2 Towers
Throughout PS I was mixed about Towers, but in hindsight I think they are an important part of PS. Towers were hard-spawn points and anchors to any attack. Every base had a tower next to it, and that tower often led to the control of the base. Towers were often epic fights and a lot of action centered on the enemy approaching a base, taking the tower, and then sieging the base from the tower. From the defensive side it was about retaking the tower and then pushing to the next base. This was a fairly well understood formula for conquest. As long as the tower was not yours you had to worry about infantry assaulting your base. Id like to see more variety in towers. Theyre basically mini-bases, so you can mix up the layout a bit so capturing a tower isnt quite so cookie-cutter and give different layouts different advantages. The standard tower layout isnt bad, but as the theme of my document statesvariety is good. It keeps things from getting stale. 6.2.1 Middle-of-nowhere Towers & Air Towers One thing that always sucked was finding oneself in a tower in the middle of nowhere. All you could do is deconstruct to a base/recall to Sanc. But most people just foot-zerged it to the nearest enemy base/tower. I think this mentality should be noted and capitalized on by the PS 2 team in their continent design. A few ideas maybe instead of random towers all over the map, tighten up the map a little bit and put two towers next to every base in different configurations (and distances). Not every base needs two, but having a few with two as an experiment could be interesting. Additionally, here are a few ideas on the middle-of-nowhere towers. First, make them all Air towers, and remove air towers from near bases. By making all towers out in the middle of nowhere air towers they instantly gain strategic value. Since bases are often hotspots having air towers out a ways in various directions means pilots can go take them and use them for the repair/rearm purposes. Pilots of opposing empires would likely fight over them if they are in a good strategic location

providing repair/rearm away from a front.

To prevent random towers not-in-use from becoming a problem, the second idea is to make them temporary-hack towers. A hack might claim them only for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes they go neutral unless you re-hack before then. Any towers not in use go neutral and so there are fewer chances of infantry getting shoved out to them.

6.3 Caves
At first I didnt like the caves, but after BFRs came out they became the only safehaven to enjoy good fights without stupid jumping indestructible anime robots flying aroundand so I spent a lot more time in the caves with a few old friends. After playing a lot in them they became quite cool and they grew on me. The biggest challenge with the caves is learning the zip lines. Once you learned the layout and how to get from point A to point B via zip lines the caves were a fun place for infantry/light vehicle combat. One challenge was that it took a long time to learn those zip line routes and the cave layout. I think this was a big reason a lot of people didnt like the caves they were simply confusing and had a steep learning curve, unlike the surface-fighting. The fact that they indirectly could impact combat on a continent was a nice bonus. If you got the cave lock you gave your empire another attack avenue, defensive benefits, or closed a point of attack. Either way locking caves was always helpful. Id like to see caves back in some form in a PS sequel. They could be smaller little mini-cities to fight over and provide smaller bases. They were sort of like Battle Islands in that context. From comment posts by Smedley it doesnt seem like they liked the caves and maybe a lot of players didnt either (I didnt at first). I think the concept was good; the implementation could be improved upon. With some thought and redesign I think caves could come back and provide a similar tactical advantage. They should have small populations though. Small-scale tactical urban fights were what made the caves great IMO. The impact they can have on other continents was a great bonus that really played into what PlanetSide was about one person (or one squad) can make a difference and change the landscape of a battle. The caves added truth to that statement and provided a different style of fun. Variety is good, but as I said above they could probably use some implementation changes and be more fun for everyone. Also, when caves were first released their bonuses werent as profound as they were later. Early on you had to run modules to get the benefits, while later on simply locking the cave provided benefits. The lock-benefit made it easier to profit from caves in a short period of time.

6.4 Continent Design

Continent design in PS was, given the circumstances, amazingly good. Considering how much the game changed and how the continent layout was created prior to the lattice system being invented it was remarkably well-done.

There was a lot of variety in landscapes and different base situations. Proximity is usually the path the mindless zerg follows nearest enemy objective. This led to predictable conquest patterns that only deviated when the other side attempted to intentionally circumvent it. This is true in a lot of games. Continents that were particularly cool were Ceryshen (arctic mountains, very rough terrain, dark and gloomy), Forseral (temperate forests and hills), Hossin (swamp) and the classic Cyssor. Continent size is interesting. Large continents took a long time to take over and were often impossible to take if all three factions were present. Smaller continents could still run into the same problem, but smaller continents tended to have faster action and shorter travel time due to being more compact. I think people enjoyed both large and small continents. Variety is good and one isnt necessarily better than the other. Later battle islands were created from Oshur as really small continents clustered into one. It was a cool concept and added variety to the game. This is good. I think asymmetry is an important part of battle though, and the battle islands were, for the most part, symmetrical. Symmetry isnt a good thing in war games because varied terrain is precisely what leads to variation in tactics and strategy, and more importantly varied experiences. When the terrain is similar it becomes less interesting. The continent designer(s) did a great job making every base unique and interesting and having different battles and tactical strategies to taking it. Lattice lines made that a little dynamic too in terms of which direction the base was attacked from. 6.4.1 World Size Most of the fighting in PlanetSide occurred on a small portion of the map. Since bases were the focal points of conquest naturally they were where players spent most of the time. The direct paths between the bases (usually along lattice lines) were also well-travelled. However, in spite of this the open space, while infrequently used, was important to the game. Out-of-the-way locations were often where lodestars would be parked to provide safe rearm away from the front. It was also where AMS got parked. For aircraft and ground vehicles both the open ground between and near bases was where battles were fought. Since the main zerg moved along the direct connections between the bases, side- routes and going around mountains was often a means of bypassing the enemy or attacking another linked base. Were that space to be trimmed back or distances shortened, the style of PlanetSide conflict would be significantly affected. Considering how much I enjoyed those parts of PS I am wary to see it changed. I do not believe space was a negative issue in PS. Travel time and getting-to-the-fight was more the problem, though it is easy for one to see the getting-to-the-fight problem and naturally conclude that shortening distances fixes it. While it might, it will come at a cost to other parts of the game people love. Remember the first M of MMO- Massive. Massive in PlanetSide didnt just mean the number of playersit also meant the size of the world. Having that large

persistent world helped make PlanetSide what it is. Its one of those things that I dont think should be mucked with.

6.4.2 Capitals Capitals were a good addition to PS. It formed natural chokepoints and points of interest. The only downside to these was that they were sort of shoe-horned into the existing continent design. Ideally the continents would be designed from the ground-up with this in mind. There are several improvements a continental redesign could accomplish, and making more logical capital setups is one of them. Its a good overall concept though and well executed. I liked this feature and hope to see it evolved.

7. Why PlanetSide Failed

I dont really think PlanetSide failed. That title is to get your attention. It was wildly successful from a gameplay perspective and I had a ton of fun playing it! I consider it to be the greatest game of all time, but from a business perspective of growth and revenue, I think it failed. It was a game that could have been far more successful than it was. I will give an explanation for its failure, but keep in mind my perspective is quite biased and I have little knowledge of SOEs actual financial status throughout PlanetSides lifetime. The following are what I consider the significant reasons for failure. It is worth noting that none of them are related to the core designs of the game itself. PlanetSide did not fail because it was a bad idea it failed because of poor execution and poor maintenance. Its great ideas are what kept it alive so long. I have this section in this document because I want a PlanetSide sequel to avoid these pitfalls.

7.1 Planet-What?
Marketing Failure. PlanetSides marketing was terrible. I personally heard about it from a friend during open beta and decided to give it a try. Whenever I told anyone about it, they had no idea what it was. It had no presence in gaming news and as far as I know no presence in any significant conventions (I may be wrong there, but it certainly didnt get very positive press). It was like this random MMO shooter game sprouted up and nobody really knew about it. It has since gained a cult following and many people I encounter have played it at some point or another, at least for a little while, like during the free trial period. I consider this the greatest failure of PlanetSide. If players dont know about the game, they cant possibly play the game. SOE could have done far better to promote this game, and had they done so it would have been far more successful on many levels, as more players brings more fun, more revenue, and more reasons to re-invest in making the game better. Get information out there. Show off the game. Be proud of it. Build up some hype! With PS being a great game theres a lot to leverage for PS 2. So far Im saddened that we havent been told more about PS Next from SOE and its supposedly being made available in March. With such a lack of information it smells of vapor or at the very least.another marketing failure.

7.2 Big Failure Robots

Everyone knows that BFRs were bad for the game. The important thing to understand is WHY BFRs were bad for the game. I explained this in section 4.3. If we dont know that then it can happen again in a different form. BFRs butchered the game and caused a mass exodus. My own outfit effectively died in PlanetSide when BFRs were released, and it most certainly was not the only one. Many veterans left the game for good. Coinciding with the release of BFRs was World of Warcraft. And no, World of Warcraft was not the reason they left BFRs were. WoW just gave them a tempting gaming alternative. When you combine hot new MMO with a lot of players frustrated by a completely retarded change to a game, you practically shove them out the door. I expect that someone in SOE thought it would have the opposite effect and attract players or keep the veterans playing and NOT go to WoW, but here again there was failure. When I first heard about BFRs it was in a game magazine. I thought it was a joke. Seriously. Once again communication failure by SOE. Why they insist on keeping players in the dark on where the game design is going is just mind boggling. Talk about where you want to take the game and let the players give their input and participate in the discussion. How is it that a game magazine gets information about BFRs before the players of the game got such news? Epic Fail. On top of that, such a design change was not even vetted with the player base. Nobody asked us if thats what we wanted, or how wed want to see mechs implemented. It is as if someone in SOE was watching some Anime with fighting robots one night and copied them without any thought whatsoever about the consequences to the gameplay. This is an important example. Before adding anything significant, careful thought must be given to the consequences to gameplay and whether such additions violate the core principles of the game. BFRs did this in numerous ways and they absolutely ruined the game for many PlanetSide lovers. Vet such major things with the players, and be careful how you solicit and receive feedback. Everyone is going to say mechs are cool and few will say they ruin the game unless you phrase things right and reveal important details and you knowactually test it. Stick to the core principles of the game teamwork, paper-rock- scissors vehicle design! Make sure every vehicle has a well-defined role and stay away from multi-role vehicles. SOE should use Blizzard as an example of how to conduct change. They dont react to whining. They do listen to good arguments. They also defend their decisions. Recently lots of changes happened to WoW and Bliz stuck to their guns, didnt give in, and explained why their view was better for the game and how they would make things easier on that view. In other words, Blizzard has a vision for the game and core design principles and they stick to them no matter what. PS has some design principles that I listed in the first chapter. PS Next or PS 2 or whatever they call it needs to retain those or it will cease to be PlanetSide. The game will devolve. This is my biggest concern for PS Next, along with the fact that the greatest days of PS are long behind and many balance tweaks and features have happened over the years that may not be good in the classical PS context.

7.3 Cheaters

While poor marketing and the BFR clusterfuck hurt PlanetSide, cheaters were the nails in the coffin for many players, myself included. PlanetSide uses client side hit detection and has long had a speedhacking

issue. These two combined make a hackers dream game. Toss in developers who dont give a crap and players will only put up with it so long before giving up. I came back to PlanetSide again in 2009, and I left it soon after purely due to hackers ruining my gaming experience each and every night like clockwork. The worst kind of hackers are the kind that arent blatantly obvious. A good player with a slight speed edge or an aimbot with the sensitivity toned down. Those are the ones that are the worst and slip under the radar. Theyre the guys that are just always a bit too fast, or a bit too good of aim but theyre not bad players. Theyre like pro athletes who use steroids. Sometimes they arent cheating and they are simply that good; but sometimes they are cheating. The problem is it is very hard for us to know the difference, we have only gut feelings. We rely on the game to protect us from them as well as the blatant cheaters that zip around at light speed one-shotting everything. The problem with PlanetSide is that it protected us from neither. Client-side hit detection is to blame for much of it. You simply cannot trust the client. But this may have been a necessary evil for PlanetSide to have even remotely played well, but still, theres a trust issue that needs to be resolved. Cheaters are exploiting it. The whole dual-core speedhacking has always blown my mind and I dont want to speculate as to how something like that happens other from poor design or poor programming. Speedhacking was incredibly easy in PlanetSide and there really is no excuse for it. It doesnt matter how good the game is; when it is infested with cheaters legitimate players will be turned away. As I said before, it was the nail in the coffin for me and many others before me. Again, had the game been promoted better and a bigger financial success, maybe there would have been more game staff policing such things and a bigger investment in anti-cheating. I can only speculate, but it needs to be a priority in any game of this caliber.

7.4 OS Compatibility
PlanetSide had serious Vista compatibility issues, and it is mind boggling as to why a game developer would allow this. Think about it a moment. Most new PCs have the latest OS, and gamers buy the latest PCs far more than normal users. Even if not a fanatical gamer, casual gamers still buy PCs and those PCs will more often than not have the latest operating system (yes, I know Vista in particular was a bit of a lame release). The simple fact is as time goes on more and more people will use the newest OS and when a player buys new hardware he is likely going to get that new OS as well. Vista may have had some bad press, but the PC sales numbers dont lie it still sold quite well and continues to have prevalence and a game developer cannot rely on an OS to have bad press to solve their compatibility issues for them. A game developer cannot afford to not run on the newest OS. It is a death sentence for the game, as gamers upgrade their PCs you are relying on them to NOT upgrade their OS to continue playing your game, and after a couple years that is an incredibly stupid assumption. Whats even more retarded is that in

2009 - three years after Vista was released and on the eve of its successor operating systems

release - PlanetSide is finally going to become Vista compatible. Better late than never, I suppose, but wowpoor priorities. The highest priority in my mind is keeping people playing the game and ensuring new players CAN play the game. When you dont keep up with the operating systems you screw yourself on both accounts. Windows releases have betas and RC releases prior to general availability which offer plenty of opportunity for testing and compatibility changes to ensure all new PCs can run your game. This is one area Im quite passionate about because for some years I was unable to play PlanetSide at all due to OS incompatibility. I can imagine new players on a new OS trying out the game arent going to fiddle with it long before giving up and writing it off as a buggy crappy game. This is a failure in priorities and keeping up with the ecosystem. An MMO lives for years; its not a console game that has a shelf life of a few months to a year. I am pleased to see Planetside is now Win7 & Vista compatible. It only took five years, but its nice to play it again.

7.5 Bad Release Timing

About a month after PlanetSide was released SOE also released Star Wars Galaxies, which took quite a hit on the PS player base. This is a minor thing of course but it seems like SOE really shot themselves in the foot on that one by releasing a sci-fi shooter MMO right after releasing PlanetSide. There was a noticeable player drop. By my rough estimates, around 20-30% of the Player base left almost overnight to play SWG, and I consider that a conservative estimate. I lost quite a few outfit members and larger outfits lost a lot more. I dont consider this a major reason for failure, but any notable hit to the player base contributes to a games poor performance. Considering both games were made by SOE I find it a little silly that they would release two MMOs that have a similar sci-fi theme so close together. One of the two games should have been delayed to allow the other a chance to stabilize the player base for a few months before being given the temptation of another MMO.

7.6 Steep Hardware Requirements

PS was hard to play when it was first released. Few machines could run it well, especially in a big zerg. Lag was a frequent complaint as was low frame rates, ghosting, and other such problems. One should take a note from the success of World of Warcraft it was a game that ran on a lot of different types of hardware. Even though its graphics werent great it made up for it in gameplay. PS 2 can take a similar route. As long as the game engine is designed to be upgradeable or is based on an engine thats 3-4 years old it should run well on modern PCs.

7.7 Steep Learning Curve & Awkward New Player Experience

Hedron of KAAOS noted that Planetside was a complex game and it is non-intuitive for a brand new player to come in and get right into it. New players end up getting lost by not having transportation, not knowing the ropes, and not knowing what to do in order to make progress.

KAAOS did training programs to teach players how to configure the game so as not to be at a disadvantage. Having this level of complexity is a bad sign for a game. It is as if a new player needs a veteran to take him under his wing and teach him the game. The CR5 Mission idea Hedron had (proposed in section 2.4) is another way to give new players some idea of what to do. If they have a menu of missions w/ required certs for said missions This is one of the harder challenges for the game to solve. Since everything in PS was open to a newbie it is a lot to take in. Later on they allowed new players to drop certs whenever. This was a great improvement, but something needs to be done to help new players learn the game and get involved.

8. Miscellaneous
This section is for some miscellaneous commentary that didnt fit in the above sections.

8.1 Music and Soundtrack of PlanetSide

I thought the music for PS was phenomenal! The music for the continents, the combat music, and especially the opening theme music of PlanetSide was really, really good. For PS Next, please go back to the same composer and have him take the same core music and revamp it a little. It was really good and that music is very nostalgic to me today. No PS sequel would be complete without the right music! That composer is awesome! The PS credits list the composer as Don Ferrone. Please bring Don back! And please bring back the NC Sanctuary Music. Best music of the entire soundtrack! Of course Im biasedI played primarily NC

8.2 Micro-Transactions
The PS Next questionnaire that was released about a year ago had a lot of questions around Micro- transactions and this bothers me. PS Next needs to be a Subscription model. However, that does not mean micro-transactions cannot be involved. Micro-transactions must not be necessary to compete or gain access to weapons/vehicles. This will destroy the game. MTs can be used in the same way Blizzard uses them for WoW augmentations & paid services, such as empire switches, server moves, re-customization, and purchasing cosmetic upgrades. Its also good for buying time, such as a temporary XP gain boost. These are good uses of Micro-transactions and do players a service. These make sense for micro-transactions. But if buying a microtransaction gives a combat advantage you are setting up for failure. Subscription fees are really not that much these days and theyre expected. Its easy to swallow. Subscription + In-game ads in spawn rooms & the like are fine. Micro-

transactions are good for paid services and cosmetic upgrades. Using all 3 is a good revenue model.

Contact
If you wish to contact me about any content here or just reminisce about PlanetSide Email: malorn@live.com Liberty outfit Website: www.liberty-clan.com