Planetside 2

[Ianki]

I got invited to the technical test but the email had no details.

E-mail should have a link to the download page as well as a link to the closed beta forums.

http://www.planetside2.com/download go there and login with your soe station account, if it sends you to a tech survy then you haven't been invited, if it downloads the installer than you have.

[Goffin]

I'm on NC as Goffin for now since I have another from my old outfit playing.  See you on the battlefield.

[Ianki]

I'm on NC as Goffin for now since I have another from my old outfit playing.   See you on the battlefield.

You should try some vanu with us in mumble.  At this point there is no progression anyways.

[Goffin]

Oh no doubt!  My VS has always been Mystic and she's been reborn as well.      I'll hop on mumble today when the servers go live and see if any of you are on! 

If any of you can't find the friends list,  outfit creation,  it's within the social tab at the bottom when you hit esc. 

[Ianki]

Oh no doubt!   My VS has always been Mystic and she's been reborn as well.       I'll hop on mumble today when the servers go live and see if any of you are on! 

If any of you can't find the friends list,  outfit creation,   it's within the social tab at the bottom when you hit esc.   

We already have a brbu outfit

Servers are from 9am-10pm pdt

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Heard some guy already broke the NDA.  Anyone got the vid?  I don't wanna see PS2 so much as I wanna see the guy being a moron XD

[HeK]

Karrde link=topic=5227.msg250318#msg250318 date=1342934190]
Heard some guy already broke the NDA.  Anyone got the vid?  I don't wanna see PS2 so much as I wanna see the guy being a moron XD

I think this is it:

Planetside 2 Beta Gameplay

[Dtrain323i]

[quote author=[fr31ns]Karrde link=topic=5227.msg250318#msg250318 date=1342934190]
Heard some guy already broke the NDA.  Anyone got the vid?  I don't wanna see PS2 so much as I wanna see the guy being a moron XD

I think this is it:

Planetside 2 Beta Gameplay
[/quote]


This can't be it, the guy on the video clearly says that this is BEETA gameplay. Apparently BEETA gameplay means 20 minutes of running around being an assclown

[Ianki]

[quote author=HeK link=topic=5227.msg250321#msg250321 date=1342936988]
[quote author=[fr31ns]Karrde link=topic=5227.msg250318#msg250318 date=1342934190]
Heard some guy already broke the NDA.  Anyone got the vid?  I don't wanna see PS2 so much as I wanna see the guy being a moron XD

I think this is it:

Planetside 2 Beta Gameplay
[/quote]


This can't be it, the guy on the video clearly says that this is BEETA gameplay. Apparently BEETA gameplay means 20 minutes of running around being an assclown
[/quote]

On the plus side, i think higby streamed for an hour of yesterday's play time and there is link to it on reddit.  If he is fighting in the amp station battle that we were doing, prepare to watch a cluster fuck

[Goffin]

Don't know if you fellas ever had to chance to meet buzzcutpsycho on NC with his enclave minions but he has a really good post in regards to K/D and I have to agree with him completely.


Stats Promoted by the game prime player behavior

The study of priming teaches us that passive stimuli can shape our behavior. Things like which stats appear on your character sheet will prime players to improve them, even subconsciously. For example, if you constantly reinforce that "captures" are important in the game, and put capture stats front-and center on the stats and have the default leaderboard show captures then you will see a change in player behavior as they are subconsciously primed to play for captures.

(More on priming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primin...28psychology%29)

The good side of this is that the developers can significantly and subtly influence the behavior of players by carefully choosing the stats which are promoted. The bad side of this is that if they don't carefully choose them with the understanding that their choices will affect player behavior then they can introduce ruinous gameplay.


K/D is Ruinous

The primary motivation for this post is to highlight K/D, which is a particularly ruinous stat currently being promoted by PlanetSide 2. The gaming world has a terrible culture precendent where the barometer of player skill is by default kills-per-death. Try this trick at home - play a round of BF3 or just ask a player in PlanetSide 2 how well he did. The vast majority of the time players will read their K-D stat. They will rarely read their score, and almost never cite whether their team won or lost. Years of early session shooters have erroneously trained us that the K/D stat is important. Some people think it needs to be present. It does not, and the game will be better off without it.

The danger K/D poses for PlanetSide 2 is that it discourages risk-taking which leads to derisive gameplay. Taking risks increases your chances of incrementing the death stat, which sends the K/D in the wrong direction. Taking objectives, helping other players, being the first man to assault a defended position - these are all behaviors that are discouraged by the promotion of K/D. This is one reason many players will resort to being relatively useless and sit back and snipe so they can preserve their stats rather than assault a well-defended position. If it's a good farm they will have no interest at all in advancing objectives, preferring instead to sit back and rack up stats.

If the "death" stat were not shown on a scoreboard or leaderboard then you would see significantly more teamwork and objective-based play in PlanetSide 2. It is as simple as this - when there is no perceived penalty for taking risks you will see more risk taking. Risk taking is good in games and especially so in a teamwork environment to keep the game from stagnating. The only thing K/D teaches players is that they should avoid risks. It is a selfish stat which when promoted leads to poor gameplay and derisive player behavior.


Developers have a huge opportunity

The developers of PlanetSide 2 have an opportunity to leverage the priming to influence the game by promoting stats that encourage the behaviors they want to see in game. But choosing any simple stats is meaningless and squanders this opportunity. The best stat for developers to promote is score because it is abstract, defined by the developers, and they can directly control what influences it. Simple stats like kills, captures, and K/D cannot be influenced; they are crisply defined constructs. Score is malleable. For example, if the devs which to encourage more captures, they can increase the score value of a capture. If they want to encourage more kill streaks, then they can increase the kill streak score bonus. If they want to encourage more ammo dropping by engineers they can add score for kill assists from people who were recently given ammo, and/or the score value when ammo is received.

Score is a universal stat that is defined by the developers and can therefore be controlled by the developers. It is a tremendous opportunity not only to create a universal calibration of how effective a PlanetSide 2 player is, but it also allows the developers to change the impact each action has on it. Additionally, the "death" stat is naturally factored into score - dead players don't score points. Time spent returning to a combat zone is time not earning score, so naturally dying less can be one way to improve one's score. Playing with medics and utilizing squad spawn and teamwork is a way to minimize these effects and so score takes that into account also. It's an elegant solution.

Other interesting stats could be derived from score, such as showing players where their score contribution originates, be it kills, revives, captures, etc. You could classify them, have pretty color charts, and even bring in leaderboards based on categories of score gain, from support, kills/assists, vehicles, objectives, etc. Who are the players with the highest objective-related scores? Who are the players with the highest kill-related scores, be it direct kills, headshots, streaks, assists, etc? The possibilities are rich here for PlanetSide 2 to influence what players perceive as important and aggregate many similar types of gameplay together.


Recommendation

Deaths as a stat need to be gutted from the game. It is a negative thing that discourages risk taking; just get rid of it. With it goes K/D, and in its place a universal developer-controlled stat can exist.

The best stat to promote is Score/Minute. The /minute part factors in playtime so casual players and hardcore players are on relatively equal footing in terms of making the leaderboard. It becomes a fair comparison. It also becomes a measure of efficiency; simply playing a lot and racking up score isn't enough to dominate a leaderboard. Players should be encouraged to be productive which is precisely what score/min achieves.

Please understand the power that stats have on player behavior. It isn't simply information; it influences the way the game is played. Don't blindly follow tradition and squander an opportunity to set the tone and influence player behavior in PlanetSide 2.

[CaffeinePowered]

Planetside originally didn't show your death stat at all, its something they added in later on and it did noticeably change how people played. Heck even to get your kills for the night you had to do some ass-backward way of going into your kill tracker and guesstimating what you did that night.

[at0m]

Could you PM me a link to that thread, Goffin? I can't find it.

[HeK]

Could you PM me a link to that thread, Goffin? I can't find it.

first hit: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=K%2FD+is+Ruinous

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showp...tcount=341

[at0m]

[quote author=at0m link=topic=5227.msg250387#msg250387 date=1343049414]
Could you PM me a link to that thread, Goffin? I can't find it.

first hit: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=K%2FD+is+Ruinous

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showp...tcount=341
[/quote]I meant in the PS(2) boards, but I finally found it. I wanted to agree with it, but it looks like it turned into a flamewar and got locked.

[Ianki]

more tech test invites are going out this week apparently.

Keep your gmails open, take their hardware survey if you haven't already.

[Ianki]

From the looks of twitter, it looks pretty definite that the beta is starting monday or tuesday with priority going to active subs > at on point active subs > Priority keys > normal sign ups.

So, i'm guessing everyone not playing and should be (i.e. caff) will be up and running soon.

[HeK]

And I will be away for the first week.

[Kor]

Any peeks at the skill trees?

[at0m]

There aren't any yet.

[CaffeinePowered]

Any peeks at the skill trees?

Battlefield style classes, no customization is what I've heard

Makes me want to punch kittens