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Is planetside 2 really worth playing?
Renton81
Member Posts: 92
I kinda want to dig myself into a nice FPS. I disliked black ops and wanted something a little more... so I opted to consider the MMOFPS route. But I don't want to invest time into the game, then feel regret hours down the line that reall the game wasn't all that.
A few things that concern me is I've been hearing a lot of complaints about bad hit detection boxes. Then there are people saying how its a Pay 2 win game. I've even seen some referencing links from gaming sites showing how much it would cost if you wanted to buy everythign and its a lot.
I've played MMO's before. At least with WoW, for example, I can say to myself 'well if I want to experience everything the game has to offer, I just need to pay for a couple of expansions worth in cash. Where as if I wanted to experience all the guns and items in PS2 the total would be an extortionate amount.
Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick. Is it worth it?
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Comments
Already a thread like this.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/370713/Is-PS2-worth-trying.html
answer is still yes
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
Renton, I've seen you start at least three of these threads about different games.
My honest advice would be to check out the features offered by each game, read a few reviews, and then just throw down some money.
It's not pay to win, its pay to level faster - just like gw2
It's not like cod at all, the only thing it has in common with cod is both are fps, saying planetside is like cod is like saying dishonoured is like counterstrike.
The game is entirely free to play. All it will cost you to try it and find out for yourself if it is your cup of tea is a bit of download time.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
The game is free, you've got nothing to lose but an evenings worth of free time trying it out.
I don't know about the detection box issue. It could be a performance related issue maybe, depending on your PC your game could get really choppy in large battles, which makes shooting a real pain.
You can trial all the guns in PS2 for free for a half hour each, but really the default guns end up being the best all around weapons generally speaking. Abilities/armor/etc. are what you'll end up wanting to upgrade the most, and those have to be earned ingame.
Planetside 2 is pretty damn impressive. Im not good at it, but i still cant deny i dont think ive seen gaming on a scale like this before with extremely little or no lag.
Massive maps, lots of progression. Free to play. Infantry, land, and air. Very well done mapping system (hexagonal). The graphics are sweet, i dont get any lag. I even sometimes just sit back and watch the battle. Its cool.
Dont get me wrong, im not "hooked". I dont rush home and run to the PC, i probably would though if i wasnt so terrible at the game :P
You should give it a try you literally have nothing to lose.
I say definitely give it a shot. Like others have mentioned it is free, and so there really isn't anything to lose but your time and bandwidth.
I've only played about 40ish hours of it so far, but that's pretty good considering I get bored of most multiplayer FPS after about 10-20 hours. I just enjoy the sheer scale of it, and the dog fighting is just awesome! I can elaborate more later, but right now I'm very tired after a long gaming session of PS2 lol.
Play it, you won't regret it. I hit it up for 2 hours today, fighting at zurvan amp station and the crown, started with about half an hour in mosquitos, then moved into long range sniping then medium range infintration.
Had a blast, play it.
It is F2P, so I don't understand you don't just try it and see for yourself. What is the big deal? Just try it. If you like it, great. If not, stop playing. Seems pretty simple.
I also don't understand feeling regret about time wasted playing it. If you are having fun, it is not a waste, and if not, you won't have wasted that much time. A true waste of time would be spending time on regretting a game you played. Now that is pointless.
No, you will not get to experience everything in the game, unless you are around for a long time. You can "test" each weapon for about 30 minutes though (but not the upgrades).
Its much better then Battlefield 3 in every single way. But has fewer guns, vehicle types. For me answer is yes but I know many people who hate it.
Even in graphics? Ah it was sarcasm, I get it
"Free" - that just means you don't pay up front. "Someone" pays - the the old school poster of fish eating fish: "no such thing as a free lunch".
Time spent trying to see if "it gets better" - often the question can come up. "Yes, later on ..." - espeically in computer games where you start weak and build up.
Filling your HD up with "crap games" you don't want to play, spending time downloading them and installing to then spend more time to remove them... It adds up with annoyance.
To someone that spends 40+ hours a week playing a variety of games, it's trivial. To someone that spends maybe 6-8 hours gaming - it's a chunk of time.
As for regret - see the above.
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As for answering the OP:
First - it is free but, in all honesty - the F2P model is Free to try out but best if you decide to pay a bit after figuring out which end your hat goes on.
TTK in this game (time to kill) is like a lot of standalone games if you were playing as an NPC's on "easy mode" - infantry dies really fast. It's so fast that you rarely have time to react before being dead. A lot of friendly fire kills are due to this. You literally do not have the time to determine if it's a friendly coming or not - shoot first or die first.
"All the weapons!" - relax.
You can buy a variety of weapons but each weapon tends to be a "variant" that takes fittings/slots to enhance their usefulness. Fittings cost certs which are earned in game by playing it. It's like having "slotable" items in another MMO - great! Tons of options that are all "clunky" until you cert them up.
So having 10 different guns that you bought, you will only use a small number of them -AND- that subset needs certs to make them "really useful". You're better off with few weapons that have a lot of certs spent on them than a ton of options that are "basic" weapons.
The options on them are different and only 1 can be slotted per "effect area".
Examples: Ammo types - standard works. Softpoint works better at less than long range, hitting harder but also moving slower. Highspeed works better at longer ranges, traveling faster but your gun will bounce around a bit more.
A laser on the barrel helps with "from the hip shooting" but is pretty worthless at range - whereas an extended mag will let you pack more ammo in its place or ...
Optics - preferences. From cross-hairs through "dots" around to the basic iron ones - loading higher optics means it's tougher to use at closer ranges but better farther out -- except for the sniper rifles which higher optics also means a hell of a lot more "wiggle" but much longer visual ranges.
Those kinds of "trade-offs".
"Pay to win" - Yes and no.
Yes in that you can double your cert (XP) gains by paying. Yes in that if you buy weapons, those certs you'd have used can go into fittings for them and for slot enhancements -- no in that pretty much everything is available in the game so you *CAN* go without and still have access to all the functional stuff. (art stuff, like cammo, is all pay but has *ZIP* effect)
Let's put it into a dollars & sense setting (vs cents).
Say I spend $75 for the first month - and see what I can do compared to a "free" player.
First - a 1 month subscription -- that's $15.
Now - 500 SC for a single week's boost on cert & XP gains ($5) and I do this for a month's worth - x4 so $20 on this part.
NOTE: The montly subscription is across all chars on THAT account. The booster is "per char", not per account. As in a single character, of the 3 potentials per account, can get an XP boost for a week using this.
So for $35 dollars and I'm breaching 2 times the cert gains of a non-paying player. Shoulder to shoulder, I'll earn twice as much as they will.
That still leaves me 4500 SC to work with (1 month sub gets you 500 SC to work with and SC breaks down to 1 per penny.)
- 700x2 on each rocket launcher for an HA (1 each - you'll want this. the combined new one is 2/3rds the damage and it already takes 6 rockets to knock down a "basic composite armor cert'd" gunship -- 1 more rocket than you can carry.),
- 700 for an optional S class LMG.
- 700 for the A2G rocket-pod launcher for an air fighter (fairly essential for ground farming)
- 700 for the A2A launcher (another important addition for pilots to shoot down other pilots -- especially larger gunships)
3,500 SC spent.
I still have 1000 SC to play with.
As we two "earn" our way through the game, he's going to need to spend 2x the time I do earning certs -AND- He's 4,500 certs *BEHIND* me on weapon options.
At an estimated 25 certs an hour, it will take him 180 hours to be where I'm at. It will take me 90 hours yet what I'll be putting certs into, he won't - or he won't have the weapons I do and I'm not "going hog wild' on weapon options - 1 alt gun and 4 other important weapon options is all.
Example spending on effects vs base weapons:
- This opens up carrying up to 3 med packs for every class your char plays.
- for the HA
-- let's get him 2 C4 - enough to blow up any tank in the game.
- let's bring his nanoweave armor up to 20% more life (rank 4 - that last 5% is 1k more vs just 211 for this level)
-- let's max his HA class-defense shield ability.
-- let's also get him both grenade options (anti-vehicle & concussion)
-- let's get him optics, ammo, barrel options for his S series gun.
- let's get his fighter enhanced...
-- Decoy flares up to 3
-- Hover stability bonus to 2-- Composite armor up to 4
-- Thermal Optics for both missile systems
- Ammo up 3 notches each for each rocket.
-- lock on range for A2A up 3
All this for the 4,500 certs we *DID NOT SPEND*, iin half the time our F2P player will spend just getting the weapon options up there.
It's doable without paying but 90 hours vs 180 and all those points going into enhancing vs basic weapons? ... That's a lot.
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Also realize that there are 3 areas to the game you'll need to look at:
Planes, Armor & Infantry
In the above order is the "winning" plan. If you can fly, you'll do better than from armor and from armor you'll do better than as infantry.
I nicknamed this game "Planes, Tanks & Fodder" - when air is around, it tends to be a no-win situation unless you have air to counter them and learning to fly is very difficult for most players - besides many/most don't want to fly vs ground based fighting.
I don't see this changing. It was a design decision by SOE.
As such, you'll want air, vehicle and infantry certs - unless you choose to focus on Air, the others will be important.
Actually, BF3 looks *miles* better than Planetside 2.
It also has gameplay that doesn't feel like you're playing with cardboard boxes bound with duct tape.
Honestly, Planetside 2 is fine, it's not horrible, but compared to BF3 it's not even a game. It's like a Facebook game-like app.
I'm exaggerating, but you really need to compare this stuff on a proper scale.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
It's free! So yea, it's worth it.
It isn't free, it takes so long to unlock anything and the base stuff is crap, you will die a shit ton and you need to purchase stuff to compete really.
You don't need to buy anything to compete. Everything you can buy is pretty much a side grade. And you will die a shit ton when you first start, regardless.
It really isn't a side grade at all, the game is poorly balanced.
Well, the game is free, so it may be worth a little of your time. It's ok TBH, not outstanding, nor innovative, nor particularly well balanced (regardless how many of Youtube/twitch casting fraternity sing it's praises).
It can be fun, but you will meet aimbots and invulnerable troops (like any online FPS) and you will die a lot as a consequence.
Try it and see.