@nutcrackr said:
@Wasdie said:
@nutcrackr said:
Who doesn't like to zergs with hundreds of soldiers running around in abysmally designed structures? A game that is only fun in huge groups is not fun, you are having fun with the groups not the game.
Quantity is not quality. That certainly does not meant they are mutually exclusive, but PS2 has more of the former and little of the latter.
You clearly haven't played since right after the release.
A game that is only fun in huge groups IS fun if the game was designed around exactly that. Otherwise you're dismissing decades of extremely popular MMO content as not fun despite the obvious popularity. So either you're being shallow or millions of people don't know what fun is.
Haven't played since late December 2012. The things I disliked about PS2 are the shooting mechanics, samey weapons, level structures (abhorrent) and the general flow of attack and defend which is nothing more than attrition on a huge scale. I hated the huge downtime as you wait for everybody to actually get their shit together and load up into the transport. The other major, game-breaking problem they had was the player culling when there were too many people in the one area. From what I have read just now the culling is still present in some situations, which is completely ludicrous for a game that is all about huge player numbers. Have the other issues changed? Do they have newer structures, do they have better gun mechanics? Can you just jump in and have a 30-60min firefight with small groups of enemies? Is there a better balancing between vehicles and infantry?
Let me break it down
-Shooting mechaincs have gotten tighter as they greatly reduced the flinch when you got hit. Shooting does feel tighter due to tweaks to the recoil, cone of fire, and general improvements to the hitboxes and netcode (netcode is still not perfect but that's to be expected for a game that can handle 500 player battles). The TTK is still much higher than your average FPS today but it works out well now.
-All three factions have gotten dozens of new weapons to completely fill out the gaps in their arsenal. Weapons have been retweaked and balanced to not feel as similar. Some guns still do feel pretty similar but that's their point, especially when they are cross faction. More weapons being added next week with a few more changes to increase diversity.
-All three maps have been basically revamped. Every single base has had buildings added, more cover added, entire new pathways, caves, jumppads, elevators, and pretty much everything else added. Amerish had a massive revamp that basically makes every single base completely different as they now incorporate more features into the terrain (more tunnels, natural cover) rather than just copy and pasted the same buildings. Bases are made up of the same buildings for the most part (saves on memory), but they are always laid out differently and connected differently. Furthermore Amerish and Esmair have a lot more custom structures built for each base. Bases are far more diverse while feeling familer like you can easily find your way around them. A few new building structures have been added to the game as well. All three major facilities have been given huge overhauls to improve their flow and they are far more fun. Generators are now placed more logically and provide a lot of smaller objectives to accomplish rather than just taking the whole base.
-Flow of attack was completely revamped with the reintroduction of the lattice system. Now each base is connected to 2-3 other bases via the lattice system. You cannot attack bases that aren't on the front line and they must be connected to a friendly owned territory. This basically builds up lanes the attackers follow which makes predicting where the next battle is going to take place completely possible. Capture timers have been completely overhauled to minimize the amount of down time waiting for a base to capture. There are still large zergs but because of the lattice system you can predict where they are going. Outfits often manipulate the zerg to help them accomplish goals. Two zergs meeting now are a lot more fun as there are far more veteran players among them who know what they are doing, the bases are better designed, the balance is better, the culling has been fixed (more on that later), and the lattice system ensures that a fight lasts instead of one faction just disappearing allowing the other to just roflstomp them. Zergs are actually fun now and are a core part of this game and I would never want that to change.
-Downtimes have been worked on as now if you are in a squad you can instantly redeploy into a moving sunderer or galaxy. No more waiting around to be picked up, just redeploy and respawn. This has helped greatly with the flow and it has increased intensity of battles and tactical options for defeating an enemy with the ability to quickly redeploy on an enemy's flank.
-Player culling has been worked on quite a bit. It still does exist but it depends on your roll. You'll never be attacked by something you can't see and for the most part it's never an issue. Fights feel far bigger because you can see more players now. They worked on the LoD and animations as well as the server side physics handling and player location to bascially remove all local culling that was going on. Never once in the past 6 months have I felt like I'm missing out on stuff. The most obvious times the culling is happening is when you're in a fight of over 300 people crammed in a tiny area. Then you'll notice your faction pop in from time to time. They focus on culling out unimportant players to your perspective. Your squad isn't culled, your platoon isn't culled, and your roll isn't culled (if you're AA they won't cull aircraft, if you're in a taken they don't cull out any anti-tank weapons or vehicles, stuff like that).
-You can jump in for 30-60 minutes and find good firefights if you know how the new systems work. The game is still best played with at least one squad for more than one hour though. It's not a CoD substitute in that regard. My playsessions are usually 2 hours on average.
-The vehicle/infantry balance is FAR better than it was back in early 2012. Hell the whole game is almost perfectly balanced now (trust me, that wasn't easy to achieve). There are also way more abilities for the classes, a new vehicle, more equipment, more guns for the aircraft, and next week the medic is getting an upgrade. The infantry/vehicle balance was solved when they started addressing base design so that vehicles couldn't just camp every single building. Most buildings now provide far more cover and on Amerish there is a lot more natural cover. HE was reduced against infantry and there are more AT weapons for infantry to use. Overall tanks and aircraft have their place but they don't beat the shit out of infantry anymore.
You would really like what they did with the maps I think. No longer are the bases as cookie cutter as they were. They do share very similar structures of course but now each base is laid out extremely different with more cover, more natrual cover, and different building configurations. Amerish is the map that had been completely redone. Natural caves, multi-level bases, bases that span the entire side of a mountain, lots of jump pads, gav lifts, and teleporters. Bases surrounded by moats and/or walls. Bridges that can be hacked so enemies cannot cross. Even the layouts of all 3 major facilities have been drastically improved and are a lot more fun to fight at.
The game is bascially a whole new beast now. New UI, new mecahnics, new weapons, a new vehicle, new maps, new voice overs, new pretty much everything. You really should give it another try.
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