Planetside fun, but exp is bullshit... more to come.

[noel]

Here is my reply to the now deleted thread regarding the first day experience system changes:

I agree. Saying that it was well known exp would be tweaked on release is an out and out lie. I was already on the fence about purchasing this game because of my distaste for the lattice system, but I would not have purchased the game had I known about this experience change.

I have already told all of my friends not to buy it until this is fixed. I honestly expected better than this.

This was a reply to the thread regarding the 'Producer's Letter' which can be found here.

There was originally a reply link at the bottom of the letter. The now deleted link led to a now deleted thread where EVERYONE was calling out this so-called producer for lying and claiming that it was well known exp was going to be tuned down at release. It's a lie.

The game with the current experience system and current lattice system is stupid, and not worth playing. I can't return it... (thx CompUSA) so I'll be monitoring the devs to see if they pull their heads out of their asses, and I will not be playing after the initial 30 days. I have never seen a developer piss of this many people on release day for non-technical issues.

[noel]

Posting this alternate thread here before it gets nuked as well:

Valcron74
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:14 PM user search report post
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Twist, Smoke, or whoever makes the final decision on this team. My question is this, is this it? Are incremental gains and slow Everquest type of experience curves what I have to look forward to for the next 6 months?
If so, how about being earnest and letting us know? I am going to pull a few quotes you wrote on the old beta fourms. I am going to reserve major judgement until I get in the game tonight and actually kill people to see how it goes. Other than that, I just want to know if this is it, final, no if's, and's, or but's about it.


TWIST ON EXPERIENCE CHANGES, MAY 13, 2003

"In the end we'll do our best to come up with a system that is fun while preserving a sense of accomplishment and value to those people who have used exp to specialize their characters. We don't want it to suck. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here and say we WILL make it not suck for as many people as possible (because to paraphrase Lincoln, you can make it not suck for some of the people some of the time, but you can't make it not suck for all of the people all of the time).

Ph33r our determination to not suck! "

TWIST ON EXPERIENCE CHANGES, MAY 13, 2003

"The range of EXP was always intended to be thin in Planetside and not the point of the gameplay. You play to fight. EXP is a byproduct of that but not the point nor was it ever intended to be. When we think of ways of retaining customers, we do not think of EXP as a tool for that. All our thoughts along those lines are "how do we make the game fresh and cool so people keep playing". It's implied in all of those discussions that everybody we're considering from a retention standpoint is capped out on exp already.

So for those of you considering that we adjust exp to keep you playing for 2.26 months or whatever on average before you cap out, you can let that worry go. It's not the objective, never has been, and won't be.

- Twist "

NOT DONE WITH EXP YET, MAY 16, 2003


"We don't need thousands of people in to test how the math of the XP system works. That's straight forward. What we do need is people to get into the real battle situations and show us how those end up statistically, in terms of the percentage of XP they are getting. The actual numbers can be fiddled with at any time.

So right now what we're looking at is how the distribution of percentage of return against maximum possible is working out. And of course the subjective "feel" of that, against killing enemies for example. Given that data we can adjust actual values to anything and have a pretty good idea of what will result in points of average capture afterwards.

Short form: We aren't done looking at XP.

-Twist "



I posted these for a reminder of what was said in beta and what is reality now.



HarpX
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:26 PM user search report post
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Thanks for the quotes Valcron74, it was smart of you to make copies. They are all gone from the forum now. I really wanted to go back and look at them today.

quote:
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The range of EXP was always intended to be [/i]thin[/i] in Planetside
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(emphasis added)
Heh, I think they tricked us, but it is not as terrible as everyone says. You will probably be dissapointed though.

Pretty much we're getting only 10% of the previous xp for killing other players. So thats that. I think before it took a compelled player a couple weeks for br20 and not its a couple months. It sucks pretty bad and I feel a little tricked, but it doesn't ruin the game for me. I'm ok with it.

Unless those XP grind levels are true. I've heard some say that after br 14 it takes like twice as much xp. I guess we'll see.



HarpX
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:28 PM user search report post
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(dope slams himself)
Stupid no edit button. .. thin


Chavr2
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:28 PM user search report post
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It is true. I was 16 up to the last day of beta. 15 and 16 dragged on forever. It really sucked.

halo14
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:31 PM user search report post
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When I signed up today, I signed up for a three month subscription. I signed up for that based on the gaming experience I had during beta. Normally for a game I liked, I'd think nothing of signing up for a six month subscription, but toward the end of beta, PS was starting to be less and less fun. I decided to give it three months to determine if the developers could inject the fun back in it.
The changes to the exp system have made things worse, not better. I will be cancelling my three month subscription and playing for a maximum of 30 days. The changes to experience have devalued several of the classes, and added tedium where there was none.

I liked the game that was Planetside during exclusive beta, and the beginning of open. Unfortunately, a string of poor decisions have been made that have made the game less and less fun. I implore you to please reconsider this aspect of the game. It's disappointing to see something with this much promise ruined.

As an aside, I know the players are the enemy and you never give them what they want, but what happens when there are no players?


Valcron74
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:34 PM user search report post
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This all plays into what was found out at E3. Apparently levels 14-20 are going to be double hell levels, just like in EQ or some such.

I read it over on planetside-universe.


Chavr2
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:37 PM user search report post
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Whats really funny is that EQ no longer has hell levels.
Turns out the player base pretty much hated them so they are gone now.

Too bad Planetside didn't catch on to that little tidbit. In fact, exp is much more lenient and easy to get in EQ now then it was 2 years ago. It's not really a grind anymore. You can progress at a pretty good clip really.



Sennen
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:40 PM user search report post
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So for those of you considering that we adjust exp to keep you playing for 2.26 months or whatever on average before you cap out, you can let that worry go. It's not the objective, never has been, and won't be.

- Twist "

To paraphrase Neo from Reloaded....

"BULLSH**!"



SanguinousRex
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:41 PM user search report post
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I've noticed a lack of dev feedback so far Not that I'm saying that as a bad thing, just noticed it.

Chavr2
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:42 PM user search report post
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They have our 50 bucks already if we are posting on this forum. Why reply?

SporkfirePS
Developer posted 05-20-2003 04:43 PM user search report post
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We'll be watching the xp gains over the coming week. If they are too low to match our projection curves, we'll up them. We have to keep in mind that previously, we were playing under beta rules. We analyzed that data from beta and now we have to watch the flow of gameplay as it can only be seen in a live environment.
We don't intend to devalue the goal of gaining experience. There will be merit to gaining Battle Rank 20 or Command Rank 5, which is even harder. Those that pursue those goals will have accomplished something, regardless of how many others are already at that rank.

Victor Wachter
Community Relations Representative
Many questions can be answered by reading the PlanetSide Game Info and FAQ


Valcron74
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:43 PM user search report post
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I have every single quote from Smokejumper and twist in a file, I knew the beta boards would be wiped so i grabbed their posts and put them together.


Hadiar
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:48 PM user search report post
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"We don't intend to devalue the goal of gaining experience."
This kind of contradicts what you said in the beta boards, Twist.

Regardless, the sad fact is, with such low experience gains from kills (which used to be my primary source of experience) you have turned the ENTIRE focus of the game towards experience.


Chavr2
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:50 PM user search report post
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quote:
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The range of EXP was always intended to be thin in Planetside and not the point of the gameplay. You play to fight. EXP is a byproduct of that but not the point nor was it ever intended to be
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quote:
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We don't intend to devalue the goal of gaining experience
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Not the point of gameplay, but then you NOW say it's a goal.


Thanks for lieing.


Valcron74
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:52 PM user search report post
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Lieing is a strong word.
I think it's the issue of RightHand/LeftHand syndrome.

The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. In Twist's case, the Right Bunny Ear doesn't know what the Left Bunny Ear is doing.


m0zilla
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:54 PM user search report post
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owned.com lol

halo14
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:56 PM user search report post
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Well they deleted the thread of comments on the 'Producers Letter' where every post was essentially saying that they were deceiving the playerbase. Sadly I didn't get a chance to copy it before it was nuked.
I realize I'm only one Mastercard, but you have 30 days.


SporkfirePS
Developer posted 05-20-2003 04:57 PM user search report post
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I don't see a contradiction at all. Twist explained that experience was not the main goal of PlanetSide. I posted to make it clear that his statement does not mean we consider it an unimportant goal.
Victor Wachter
Community Relations Representative
Many questions can be answered by reading the PlanetSide Game Info and FAQ


Xxanthar
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 04:58 PM user search report post
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This is how they compensate for lack of content... make the players play(pay)for months in oder to get what they think will be cool certs. Only to find out everything does the damage of a bb gun anyway...

Sennen
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 04:58 PM user search report post
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As much as I hate to do this...you should cut Twist some slack. I am sure the man is between a rock and a hard place. Make it too easy, and people get bored and leave, make it too hard and people give up.

They have to find the sweet spot, and that will take some time, so have patience.

Beating up on Twist because he is "talking out the side of his head" won't help the situation. Learn from what he has said, and retain that knowledge in future dealings.

Anyways.


Valcron74
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 05:02 PM user search report post
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I never called anyone a liar, I just felt a little deceived. I feel like this is the last of solutions they came up with.
On paper, it doesn't look good at all, I need to play


Mynrial
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 05:02 PM user search report post
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Yeah, this xp is stupidly low. Now no one will defend a base, ever, until they are around BR12 or so. Why? Becase now base caps are the only way to get any measurable amount of xp.
Base cap XP is fine, but the xp per kill needs to be changed to something approximating what we had the last few days of beta.


Chavr2
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 05:03 PM user search report post
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You know what, I'm still pissed. So I might as well type since I the server I want to play on isn't up yet anyway.

Honestly, what benefit is there from slowing down exp? Normally exp carries with it some inherent strength to your character as you get more. Not in planetside though. A br20 character is just as powerful as a br1 character, the only difference being the br20 guy has more options on how he plays.
If they truly want to use rank as a means of prestige that is cool. The catch is they need make certs independent of br's then. We should not have to wait 2-3 month's to get enough certs to see some variety. Playing with the same weapons and gear for 3 weeks before finally getting enough certs for a change is stupid. Who really wants to do that? Do you really want to walk for the two weeks it takes you to earn enough certs for a vehicle? Do you really want to be a gal pilot for a week before you get enough certs to get a decent weapon?

This is just retarded. Using exp for ranks and bragging rights is one thing. Limiting play options with that same exp system is just wrong. I dont' want to sit in the sanctuary for an hour looking for a gal pilot because no one wants to be one.

How could the massive numbers of complaints about the reduction in exp have slipped thru your heads? The boards were littered with posts from people unhappy with exp. It wasn't the system they were unhappy with, it was the quantity. Now though you ignore all of that feedback and reduce the exp inflow even more.

What the hell are ya'll thinking?

The players dont' give a rats ass what your projected curve is. We don't want to spend 3 weeks grinding out a leve. We dont' care if that is what ya'll think we should do. The player pay the bills here devs. Now that this is live we can't say "it's free beta, not like your out any money". I am out money. I'm out 50 dollars already.

I'm telling you right now, I don't like this exp system. I'm sick of the exp grinds. No other FPS I've played has EVER forced me to play for weeks just so I can add a new weapon to my arsenal. I want a new weapon I just simply change the loadout I'm currently using.

Increase the exp rewards or give me my certs indepent of exp. I won't play this game for months in some vain attempt of leveling up. Heck, I'll be returning the game if I can. I don't like being lied to.


halo14
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 05:03 PM user search report post
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I'll tell you what the contradiction is. It was clearly stated that exp would not be the focus of the game combat would. Experience would be something that happened in the course of the combat but not the end all, be all of Planetside.
The contradiction is that the beta testers played a game with an experience scale that changed little during the course of the beta, short of the way base caps worked. Testing at varying levels occurred because the players had their levels artificially raised to BR20 and BR10 during the beta.

The contradiction is that I ,as well as other beta testers, made recommendations to our friends based on what we observed in beta, and now I have to contradict myself by telling them that the game is not worth playing.

If there's no contradiction, why was it necessary to delete the entire 'Producer's Letter' comment thread?


SanguinousRex
PlanetSide Member

posted 05-20-2003 05:07 PM user search report post
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Maybe you guys should think from the players perspective instead of the dev's perspective. if you want a game that sells well, then you will want to up the exp. I'm not really angry, I'm not that kind of person, but a lot of people are - and will stop playing over the current experience system.
The PlanetSide release has gone well, comparable to the WWII Online fiasco where people could not log in for 3 weeks, but your own personal fiasco might be the experience system as is.

Sure, that was beta - but most of your current playerbase will be from the beta, and for us, who have played hard and for weeks, we all say that the current experience system sucks.

Now, who do you listen to?

Again, not trying to get mad, I'm not and it takes a lot to make me so Just pointing it out.


RnSDragon
PlanetSide Member posted 05-20-2003 05:08 PM user search report post
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There is a contradiction Twist. An obvious contradiction. You think that just by deleting what you said before will make this all go away. That fact that you led us around with a fluffy bunny of luv and promises that you wouldnt suck and then SUCK MORE THEN SOE HAS EVER DONE BEFORE! Its obvious by that news post that you intended to screw us over from the begining. That news post is like "Ohh yeah, btw, we decided to screw u all so it will take you months of paying us in order to actually have fun! Thanks for your 50 bucks!"
And now, "your watching the exp curves". Wasnt that what beta was for? now we are paying and "I realize I'm only one Mastercard, but you have 30 days" to get it right.

[kyoukan]

I went to buy 2 copies of this game today and they didn't have it up here yet in Canada til wednesday because Monday was a long weekend for us.

I am glad they didn't get any copies of it in yet. Sony just saved me $140CDN because there is no way in fucking hell I am ever going to buy it with an XP nerf that huge. Support classes are now irrelevant and squads in general are basically obsolete since deathmatchers can get XP faster solo without classes that kill less leeching their XP off them.

The game is entirely trashed now.

[Zamtuk]

I'm speechless. I have been saying that this game would go through endless crashes and patches, but I never would have guessed this to happen. Well, all I can say is the game was cool for the two months I played it.

[Keverian FireCry]

Quite frankly, and 100% seriously...Thank Sony, and do not even beta any of their products again. If you boycott this shit hard, MAYBE, just MAYBE they will change their ways...untill then, don't expect anything more.

Do NOT buy this shit product, but do not blame designers, blame the money hoarding fucks at the top of the tree.

I'm looking forward to WoW, because it is designed by players and they are picking out every single flaw they find in every single online game they experience. I dont care if WoW is flawed, it will have flaws, but it will be the BEST option for what us gamers are looking for. Have faith

[noel]

Look, unless WoW is a FPS, I'm not interested. I'm sick of fucking auto-attacking or pressing the special move button when it lights up. I want to play skill games.

I appreciate the moral of what you're trying to say, but don't even get me started on your rampant fanboism. WoW might suck large Zebra cock, and you have no idea one way or another, so don't fucking make it sound like the second coming of Christ. Just like Christ, it isn't fucking here yet.

[Ebumar]

Aran's balls must really really hurt.

[noel]

If you do buy, look for myself, Gain, Xender, Drem, or Sarcasm online. We have 'Wetworks' established on Markov atm.

http://myplanetside.station.sony.com/ou ... &worldId=3

[Avestan]

I am not going buy until you tell me to. So let me know if you changed your mind about the situation or not.

[Adelrune Argenti]

I am playing it and having fun with it. I think things will get sorted out as they always seem to be after release.

BTW, I am 999Ping on Markov as an NC. I suck horribly so feel free to kill me but no excessive gloating allowed. I mean, I really suck. God help you if I actually kill you.

[Zamtuk]

Planetside is probably one of the best game concepts to date. I am more a fan of FPS than RPG anyhow. IMO all Sony had to do was fix the bugs and implement all the broken features that were in the end of exclusive beta, and they would have a game worth playing for hours on end. I could even have dealt with the Lattice system and the exp change that affected the bases. (actually truth be told, I like the base exp change, it was more realistic, but created zerging) The only downfall of the lattice system is that it created zerging. I understand the point behind it, but it just felt like it took from the tactical part of the game and addressed the slobbering masses that were rampent in open.

[Erolz NTurnet]

those shithead haven't fixed that stats yet either. A little under half of my kills are not showing up on the stats thingie. Fuckin Sony,

[Vailex Darkfury]

Keep us updated on this Aran. Im still on the fence as whether or not Im going to buy this game.

[noel]

Going to start a new thread.

[Mort]

Bah..... got it on my lunch break today. I got 48 Hours to return it.

I should have my new smoking system by this weekend but I might have to install on the PoS 933 just to check it out. Glad to see you guys started a new outfit. Hope I can measure up, if not... back to CnC Generals for me


l33t