I've been dabbling in P2 this weekend. I've been looking for something to fix my FPS habit since the days of "Don't trust my landing, lads". Planetside 2 is free and therefore makes me suspicious about power levels/unlocks and buying a win. I honestly can't see that being a problem on P2 (you'll see why). Hunting as a lone wolf works perfectly, as does in a team.
When choosing a character, make sure you pick the New Conglomerate empire (Blue).
As a lone wolf
Watch the tutorial videos. There are no surprises here but it's wise to see what the most important bits are before you plough in. For example, the Map is very important and can be used as a jumping off point for all the other screens.
The basic Engineer and Medic classes make you instantly useful. Medics revive people and engineers have ammo drops, a deployable gun (needs you to fire it) and a fixy-tool which is good for vehicles and even better for fixing "Max"s, which are big powered armoured dudes. Infiltrator class is cool, with plenty of cool toys for the lone wolf but I'm a SHIT sniper, so went med/engineer to start with.
The map is all important. It allows you to spawn on firefights for instant action. It may be a firefight that your side is going to lose but it is intense. Anywhere which is under contention (defense or attack) is easy to see on the map and you nearly always have 4 or 5 choices of those big battles.
As a newbie lone wolf (not in a squad or working with anyone), I used those pinch points to get some XP and it worked really well. Medics and engineers have reasonable weapons too, so I was getting a reasonable kill count too.
I went lone wolf again Monday night and it does work rather well. I was hidden atop a rocky outcrop as an infiltrator (sniper), spotting enemies and popping them off with my headshot weapon. Occasionally a gunship would spot me but I'd scarper. They'd soon lose interest because of the heat of the battle and I'd pick a similar (but different spot). I racked up a tonne of XP that way.
As a team player
Last night, Gordon (MisterE) and I teamed up (we had trouble getting EMW on voice comms). We've created an "Outfit" called "LackOf", which allows groups of friends to organise themselves more easily. We created our own private squad and set our own agenda. Having someone to watch your back is really handy because... well, I get onto that in a mo.
We swapped character classes depending on what we were up to. Generally, we'd select a pinch point and assault it. Having two of you in vehicles is fun and because you spend "vehicle resource" to spawn them it means that you can have your own vehicle until it gets destroyed. You earn enough points such that
Bloody nora
Planetside 2 battles are like nothing else. A column of tanks proceed up a valley to meet an airstrike of 3 gunships; 30 (yes, 30) soldiers on foot cross between rocky cover of a mobile spawn and the objective while snipers cover; two dropships land and soldiers spill out to cap a point; intense building firefights claim lives; snipers pick off those dithering about in the open. That would be just ONE firefight at ONE objective. There'll be 5 of those on your sever. It is that scale that makes the adrenaline pump. You can also find areas where the combat is more personal, outposts where it's just 15 a side. I stayed for an hour defending one of those and made some "friends" by working together - switched back and forth between classes depending on the situation.
Unlocks
Don't expect to unlock any crazy new weapons without opening your wallet. I've got 40 "Certs" (in-game points to spend) and an upgraded lock-on rocket launcher is 1000. I'm getting about 10 Certs an hour at the moment. Smaller stuff is doable, though and that can offer some great upgrades. I don't feel that it's unbalanced though as most people aren't unlocking very much. I can see on the "who killed you" that weapons tend to be stock and that missiles are fire and forget rather than lock on. That might change, because it's early days but for now I don't think it's a problem. One person buying-to-win won't turn the odds when there are 50 people each side in a single firefight.
It's not gay in a three way
Monday night I was defending an output that was locked in a 3 way fight. As defenders, it made our job a little easier as the two attacking empires were having a go at each other. They were attacking from different angles, which made it adrenaline pumping work. It also got a lot easier when a sniper popped himself on a hill and spotted like crazy. He would have been raking in the XP as spotting an unspotted enemy gets you a kill assist.
Vehicles
The land vehicles are cool, no surprises there. Tanks, mobile spawn, atv for quick movement. They could do with a 2/3-person jeep. The air vehicles are a bit balls - too easy to fly and not very responsive for it. Perhaps I just need to get used to them. They aren't overpowered as there are plenty of anti-air turrets.
Embattled
One odd side effect of the server that I'm on is that one faction (Terran Republic (Red) - not us) is dominating. When you look at the map, it's a sea of red, a bit of purple, a bit of blue. This doesn't change the battle much but some might find the war as a whole a little daunting. I like it. Being pushed back toward your home base makes it easier to get hardware to the front line. It's a bit galling to fight hard and not see your side doing well but being the underdog is fun too.
And it's free.
Comments
The Planetside 2 faction recruitment trailers are out and although they don't really demonstrate the real differences between starting load outs, they do show realistic gameplay.
When not in MC or T2, I've been teaming up with a few Dutch chappies I randomly joined up with. The platoon regularly got up to 4 squads of 10. 40 people working towards a single goal. It was superb. Not everyone was on voice chat but those that were allowed for some very tight integration and tactics. I managed to call in an airstrike while being a snipey-infiltrator. Not a computer controlled airstrike but three of our own Platoon in separate gunships.
One of the memes that they had were "SKINNED!" which was shouted when they see a member of an enemy faction wearing armour with a skin bought from the store. "I spent money in Planetside 2" means "Please everyone shoot me".
We need to arrange another game.
HELL YES. If you see me online (on Steam), chances are I'm playing Minecraft. Gimme a shout and I'll fire up PS2. I must admit I was shattered over the weekend but most evenings that holds true!
Last night I got to insult Misterecho (Gordon) without retort (his mic was broken) for a couple of hours and it was a great laugh! Well, at least I had fun.
With just two of us working together, we managed to turn the tide of a couple of smaller skirmishes and our ATV powered death charges into enemy territory were both hilarious and sometimes effective.
I need more practise in air vehicles, unfortunately the spawn rules make it quite difficult to get practise in as you spend resources and have a respawn cooldown. I think I'll pick a safer continent and just spend an evening buzzing about. At one point Gordon and I were being owned by some chap in a fighter who was lvl 41. He wasn't using any special gadgetry (it tells you when you die), he was just really, really good.
The battlefield is large enough that you can take a break from intensity and do something a bit more infiltratory. It also means that if there is one player who is owning you, you can pick somewhere else.
I enjoyed myself. I'm starting to get a good feel for the classes and the capping rules. The UI is horrible, but I'm learning to navigate it.
As MrE pointed out last night, fighting in PS2 is really tiring. In a good way. MrE was without mic so I would ask him YES/NO type questions and look at his character, he would then shake or nod his head (which worked really well).
We were on a continent where we were backed into a corner by the enemy. This led to some of the most fierce firefights so far. MrE spent a fair time in a tank while I repaired him as an Engineer (and shot some crap up).
Here's a not very good screenie that doesn't quite show the intensity of the battle. If you look at the minimap in the bottom left, you can see that there are 9 tanks around the road. If you imagine constant streamers of tracer fire going down the road far thicker than the screenie captures and you've got it. The green shaft is a squad objective that I set. It gives MrE and I are place to run to. You can also see on the right a big structure that has 10 gun emplacements on it. 10. And they were all filled. There must have been 3 or 4 engineers going back and forth between the turrets repairing them. There was another tower just like it on the left. I wondered why there wasn't much air assault from the opposition and that would be why!
This was mid-way through an assault on a nearby capture that we eventually took. I asked MrE if he fancied doing some defence for a bit and he nodded vigorously. Once you fight hard to take a point, the desire to keep it is very strong. It's really not like other shooters where there is an 'end of round'. Your options are laid out by the strategic setup but the choice of objective is ultimately yours. While defending, I tried to heal MrE with my rifle. I was chastised by the game but not banned.
I did my first bit of running across the map today too. It only took 2 mins, so I wasn't bothered. This had been a problem with the Battlefield games. In PS2, you just jump on an ATV (called a Flash) and you're away.
I still can't fly for shit.
So I led a platoon of 24 over Christmas (2 squads of 12). When you point 24 people at a target and say "GO!", that target had better be well defended! As the battlefield is so large, people do like to be given some direction, if they don't then they find another squad or go lone wolf. Sure, you can have fun jetting about and killing at random but the feeling of assaulting somewhere with 20 others is superb. The enemy shitting themselves in panic is palpable.
My happiest moment was after taking and holding a massive tech plant (which are huge), I pointed everyone at the next objective not far down the road, and said something suitably macho like...
"Let's move! Get a tank or some wheels under you, it's time to roll!"
I then dicked about spending a few Certs (XP) on some upgrades and one of my squad ("Vluttershy", who had been a top bloke) laughed over Platoon comms in a German accent
"Brainvipe, vhat have you done!"
I climbed onboard a Sunderer (mobile spawn wagon like a battlebus) driven by (LordDTR an English teenager, who always waited to pick me up - bless him) and zoomed in on the map to see 22 tanks, at least 14 of which were Platoon based, log jammed up the road! Ooops!
The Sunderer parked up towards the rear of the pileup and I ran on foot where a couple of tanks at the front were causing a traffic jam and said something (over the proximity voice chat) like "The War is up the road, soldier, move out!" (I spend a lot of times saying things like that when in a big Platoon) and sure enough, the tanks all thundered up the road.
I still spent a lot of time playing it as a standard shooter but when you sneak behind enemy lines, drop the spawn beacon and within 10 seconds you've got 5 of your Squad landing in pods around you, that feels epic.
I liked being in a big platoon but I preferred it when I was just bellending around with MisterE, EMW and BigR.
I love the game, but find it draining at times. Being in a 24 man platoon can be even more hectic.
I loved doing both. Special (needs) Operations with the lack-crew and full scale macro warfare.
"Let's do Valkyries" said one of the Squad Leaders in the 4-Squad platoon of 36 people.
Platoon commander Lightbrigade: "Yes, good idea. Everyone to the warp gate. Pick up a Reaver (fighter) or Liberator (gunship). 3 Reavers to each gunship. Those with modded Libs, get them. Wait in a hovering hold pattern until I say GO."
So I waited a couple of minutes and aircraft kept spawning and holding. There were 26 aircraft in the end, the other 10 we either in gun seats or already at the objective doing spotting. Jesus H Christ. Near air collisions were a hazard but we stuck together.
OMFG. I've never seen anything like it.
I didn't get a screenie. Shitit.