Is this JUST a twitch game ?

Shadanwolf · April 2012

I'm an x DAOC player and am looking for great RVR. I see a lot of very fast action and am wondering if you are religated to a twitch gameplay style ? Or can you play a more thoughtful sniper play style...or perhaps man some long range artillery ?

Perhaps some can educate me ?

dubyahite · April 2012

Wow. You just opened a hole can of Planetside worms. Haha. There is so much to say about this topic. I'll try to cover as much as I can.

I'll start at the end of your question because those are easiest to answer directly. There was longe range artillery in PS1, but they are taking it out in PS 2. There are definitely snipers in Planetside (I often ran with a sniper rifle in my loadout in Planetside).

Now as far as the main point of your question goes, I will say that in Planetside there are a ton of things you can do that are not pure twitch FPS gameplay stuff. This is where you might want to settle if you don't feel like charging into a base with an assault rifle and shooting everything in sight.

In planetside you can settle into a role that is definitely more support oriented.

You can be a bus driver. You drive a troop transport and get your guys where they need to go. This is an extremely important role and a good bus driver is very important to a base assault.

Another troop transport role is a Galaxy pilot. A Galaxy is a big airship that can carry troops over enemy territory. They are durable and very important. You can load up ten people in a Galaxy, fly over an enemy base, and they all drop out from the air and parachute down to the middle of the base. Get 5 of those fully loaded and you just dumped 50 people in the middleof a fight. In Planetside 1 there was a vehicle called the AMS. It was basically a mobile spawn point that also allowed people to re-equip/change loadouts etc. The Galaxy will be filling this role in PS2. You can drop your troops then find a good place to land and deploy your Gal. It will then become a mobile respawn point where your faction can deploy at. These respawn points are crucial to a good base assault.

The liberator is a bomber. You coordinate with your base assault to drop bombs on the base when it is most useful for your team. Very fun role.

You could also be an Engineer. Engineers provide lots of benefits. In PS 2 you will be able to deploy manable turrets that can be used for defense or possibly offense as well. You will be able to repair your sides MAX suits and vehicles (crucial). You can deploy mines defensively as well as blacklight to detect stealthers.

Repairing MAX suits is very important. Basically a MAX is a big exosuit that infantry can wear. They are very durable and have heavy weaponry. They are used for several things, one of which is breaching enemy doors. The MAXes go in first and soak up damage while the infantry pile in behind them. They need an engineer to keep them repaired and in the fight.

There's also the Medic. They heal and revive infantry. Revives are very important in Planetside as respawning and running back can take a while and cause dissarray in your units ability to maintain the fight. They will also have AOE type healing abilties according to recent release information. In Planetside 1 everyone was a medic in some fashion or another. You could bring along a healing gun with any loadout basically. In PS 2 it will be a specific role.

While I'm not sure exactly how the hacking role will play out in PS 2 yet, it was very important in PS 1. A hacker is needed for many many things. You have to hack enemy doors to be able to open them. You can hack enemy faction specific vehicles and drive off with them. You can hack turrets. You have to hack bases/towers to capture them. A specialized hacker is important to speed up the process as well as being able to hack things unsepecialized people won't be able to hack.

Stealther/Sniper. The stealther and the sniper are the same class in PS 2. A sniper will be less focused on stealth but will still be able to stealth in a pinch fora short time. A fully specialized stealther has many uses though, they can sneak into enemy bases and cause chaos. In PS 1 cloakers can take undefended bases almost entirely by themselves. Cloaking is going to be very different in PS 2 than it was in PS 1, but I'm not sure about all the details.

In PS 1 there are also transports for vehicles that can deploy to repair vehicles after dropping off the vehicle they are carrying. very important.

Other vehicles are good choices as well, being part of a tank column or air wing is very fun. In the air there are bombers, fighters, transports, and gunships. On the ground there are tanks, atvs, transports, and others.

MAX suits, while still basically an FPS gameplay element, are very fun. You are the spearhead of an infantry assault. You are the "tank" in traditiona mmo terms. You are the first one through a door and you are going to eat a lot of fire from the enemy.

These are just gameplay mechanics roles that you can serve. One thing to know about Planetside is that the best Outfits will have many internal roles that need to be fulfilled.

Outfits often have training personell. This isn't so much to teach new people how to play the game, but to teach people how to operate within your outfit. Teaching them tactics and communication and things like that. Outfits often operate similar to a real military. Your outfit might have a sort of "boot camp" for people to practice the tactics that they employ as well as teaching people their roles and the proper communication methods used in Teamspeak (or whatever voice service you use).

Squad Leaders: Leading a squad/platoon in Planetside can be very rewarding. It is an important and complicated role in a coordinated team. In PS 2 you will actually be able to spec into squad leading in your skill treee! This will provide benefits to your squad like the ability to spawn right on you as long as you are outside.

Command/Strategy: In planetside 1 there was a command rank with seperate chat channels for commanders and different abilities based on your command rank. You leveled it by leading a squad. This did have problems, especially later on in the game as everyone had max command rank, and it didn't really reflect your ability to lead. But the commanders could coordinate throughout the whole faction to come up with an overall strategy for the battle.

In PS2 this is going to be very different, as you will spec into command to provide these benefits, but within your outfit there might be someone who's job is to coordinate with other outfits and help formulate overall strategy for your faction as well as strategy within your Outfit.

This person might work with other leaders in the Outfit to come up with a plan, who then pass it down to their squad/platoon leaders who will execute the plan. The squad/platoon leaders will have to come up with the best way to execute a base assault in the field for example, but the command will decide where to attack.

Outfits will have special forces teams as well. These teams are going to be small groups of very good players who fight behind enemy lines or something.

Outfits might employ spies, recon, infantry, armor, air and other elements of the game to

This is getting really long, and I'm leaving a lot of stuff out. This just kind of gives you an example of how many different kinds of things you can do in Planetside.

The way I think about it is that there are two kinds of roles in Planetside. There are gameplay roles that are defined by the gameplay mechanics you employ (sniper, cloaker, MAX, infantry, tank driver, Galaxy pilot, etc) and roles that are defined by your Outfit. The second group of roles is only limited by what is effective within your Outfits overall strategy. They are player created roles within your organization and they are just as important as what class or weapon you choose to use.

If you're not the type of player that likes running down a hallway shooting peopel with an assault rifle, there are plenty of jobs for you out there.

My best advice to maximize enjoyment in Planetside is to join a really good Outfit. The militaristic based ones provide the best place to perform these roles effectively. It's important to find an outfit that has a place for the role you want to perform.

If you want to be a Gal pilot, make sure to find an outfit that does gal drops. If you want to be a tank driver, make sure you find an outfit that has an armor division.

Planetside is so much more enjoyable if you find an Outfit that has roles like this and is highly coordinated.

Shadanwolf · April 2012

Thanks so much for the information and encouragement. Roles I would be intersted in might be stealther...engineer....sniper.I love defense..and ranged nastyness.

Key question for you.You know a lot about the game....where do I want to tune in and keep abreast of the latest ?

dubyahite · April 2012

Originally posted by Shadanwolf
Thanks so much for the information and encouragement. Roles I would be intersted in might be stealther...engineer....sniper.I love defense..and ranged nastyness.

Key question for you.You know a lot about the game....where do I want to tune in and keep abreast of the latest ?

The one and only http://www.planetside-universe.com

This is a planetside fansite that has been operating since the heyday of PS 1.

Interesting note about PSU is that this is where the vast majority of the Planetside community is at. SOE pays very close attention to this site and it's forums. In fact, Matt Higby regularly posts over there as well as several other devs. The devs take a lot of feedback from the community there and often reveal information there as well.

This is the absolute best place to find an Outfit, as well as info about the game and meet the community. They have an IRC channel, a teamspeak server, a monthly podcast, forums, and a bunch of news.

The PS community is pretty much entirely there.

Shadanwolf · April 2012

On my way...thanks

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