Improving planetside 2
Free to play game planetside 2 is rather fun game does have some big faults just going to focus on 3 big issues for the moment. Core mechanics of the game rather decent but poor design choices with bad player feedback. Creates very unfriendly experience to new players which slowly turns into an wall. Result new players disappear from the game due to the high barrier of entry with high barrier of entry due to design choices. No secret the game on every platform is suffering with rapid declining playerbase rev ensues suffering become obvious. New creative director Jens Andersen admitted that fact on reddit AMA which you can find here.
Other big issues spawns, population balance, resources, UI, base design along with much much more.
Game progression: Grind is real!
New players are faced with serious grind in order to be useful various options locked out with linear grind progression system. Easy way of solving this would be giving players options by default like anti vehicle weapons. Reduce the grind due to letting players experience other options.
Would love to use aircraft to attack ground zerg armour but I can’t. Would love to do anti armour tank role but again can’t. Until I grind the certs away to unlock these items. Want to snipe instead of using semi auto sniper sorry you need to unlock that. Not being able to pick SMG for the infiltrator class.
Planetside 2 allows players to experience range of different experiences but gates them behind a brick wall. New players should be given basic options which allows them to be useful instead of being forced on tread mill for basic parts. Basic weapons super powerful compared to other items on the store which means game is not pay to win. Simple case of ungating options from players anti vehicle, certain weapons.
Lore: Lack of…
Another big weakness of planetside 2 lack of lore, issue here why should player care about the actions. Even call of duty has some sort of lore explaining why you’re playing team death match. Absent from this game just get some basic voice overs meant to help teamplay. Game fails to explain what each faction is doing or drive behind it. Factions gain certain benefits due to history but again not explained. You don’t know the name of your own commanders or even told the planet you’re fighting on. People complain about call of duty being skin deep but the game has far more lore completed planetside which is explained.
Some solutions adding more voice lines once base is taken explaining some of the lore. Soldiers could start talking between each other about how the battle is going. Commander could come into the fold see something interesting could be done with something so basic. Objectives could be worth some sort of lore voice tape loads of potential things you could do from design point of view.
You can find some of the lore on outside sources according to game credits award winning comic book reader worked on the project. You would not know that unless you took the time to look into it. Understand that writing for video game rather hard to do given how interactive the story needs to be.
Tutorial: The wall
Game does feature basic voice introduction but lacks any sort of tutorial. Koltyr starting place for new players with some basic outputs designed to teach players the core mechanics of the game. Player interactive however is required in order to teach you. Game forces you to work out how things work over telling you sometimes does not explain. Non existent tutorial with one time voice over introduction. New players faced with wall forced to work out what is going on right now.
Progression, lore and Tutorial.
Minor changes to the progression system would help with lore taking centre stage plus bigger tutorial. For myself the progression is one thing holding me various time which has caused me frustrating times. Lack of lore creates range of issues from with feeling that battles are meaningless. On the tutorial almost quit the game due how badly explained first couple of hours. Not sure sure creating list of solutions would be enough given how the game has already launched. Good to see that creative director Jens Andersen understand game not in very healthy state but I fear they are going to move on to another title.