Planetside 2

[Hubris]

So there are lots of ways to play Planetside and I think it’s important everyone is aware of the major ones. Seriously right now, leading a grrr platoon is nigh impossible and damn undesirable at the moment. There is just waaaaay too much non-essential chatter and we’re way too dependent on the leader to give us personal attention and do it our way. So hopefully, with a few of these playstyles outlined, people will be able to be more informed and ultimately make that work.

I believe that, having read this, we will all be able to settle on what exactly we want to do going forwards and have a lot less conflict over domination, air/foot cert hunting and free range arbing around. If you are into domination, make sure everyone else commits to it or don't try it at all. You're just going to get frustrated with people doing everything except what they should be doing. I understand its not always black and white, but I can't and won't lead anything unless we all take it seriously.

I think these playing styles kind of describe how mature you gaming in PS2 is. Are you a) a lone wolf, b) an squad or small platoon member, c) a platoon out to dominate or d) a biblical bieber deathray destructzor. I hope in time we will come to be that awesome, right now we're a firm to limp b) with rare moments of nooby c).

CERT HUNTING BY AIR
Do this with a Mosquito or Liberator. Identify areas on the map where the team is capping flags and zoom in for the free cert, occasionally shooting at something. Meh to the team but it’s a nice way to rack up those last certs and potentially get to an area in the map where you can't spawn from the deployment or map menus. Play for air superiority if you want, put on your aviators, whatever I don't care. One can potentially rack up insane KPDs if you are careful about your capping and rearming.

Leet tip, don’t do this if you are the squad leader because in a few minutes, you won't have a squad left to lead.

CERT HUNTING ON FOOT/WHEELS/TRACKS
Attack or defend major facilities like Amp Statons, Tech Plants and Bio Labs. Just look on the map and see which major facilities are swinging one way or the other. If there are no sunderers in the area, spawn one and rake in the spawn xp. If there are outer bases to be capped, do that so the enemy doesn’t rinse everything in sight with recently spawned armour. Work safe rooms and chokepoints for kills, revives, resupplies etc. and clear an approach with a tank. Don’t bother with outposts unless you are isolated.

PLAYING TO DOMINATE WITH A SMALL PLATOON
This is best done either with an air assault (galaxy + troops, liberator, mozzies) or by a ground assault (sunderer + troops and tanks, possibly supported by a gunship). Every player needs to pick a role and stick to it, if you have vehicle timers to deal with just join the infantry for a bit and get back to your vehicle whoring later. Try not to zerg with the rest of the team, instead attack the opposite front, take a few outposts and round up with a facility, redeploy and repeat. Outposts are your priority.

This is what the average grrr gaming night should be aiming to do if we have more than four grrrs online. Squad leaders must hold q on troops to spam invites to players and grow the platoon - this is best done at major facilities or the TR warpgate. Basically you qualify as squad leader if you have a spawn beacon and commit to the responsibility.

Squad leaders need to constantly place their green marker to indicate where they want their squad to be and then communicate to their squad when they change it. Typically, this is on an outer base or transport rendezvous. Look out for smoke on the map near the orange marker in your squad colour and make your marker/move there. It’s up to you to organise and provide transport. Remember to stay alive, place your beacon, communicate your plan and lead the charge.

The key is to keep cohesion and work together. As long as everyone is working in-sync towards the objective and is aware of how to play, we can actually make some serious certs and have a lot of fun. Whoever wants to organise a small platoon, be my guest, but I am really sick and blerry tired of trying to make it work.

Please stop asking “where must I spawn”, “what class must I be”, “where are we going” and “what must I do”. These are the most annoying questions you could possibly ask. If your squad leader is doing his job you should be able to figure all that out from the map and from the voice chatter. If you are completely clueless or lost, just do your own thing and redeploy to meet up with the squad later. The closest spawn point to your squad leader will have a “star” next to it. Just fit in where and when you can.

TAKING IT TO THE FULL PLATOON & OUTFIT LEVEL
If we’re going to try and play for map domination we need other players to help out and fill an entire platoon or even two. Squad leaders must spam invites at the warpgate and every major base we are at for at least an hour to get close. Then we split up the voice comms in mumble and only the squad leaders use shout to communicate with the platoon leader. This is true military combined arms in action and the most exciting thing planetside has to offer.

TR are really struggling on Mallory, I don’t know why but the team is either exceptionally noob or just playing for soft certs because it zergs from flag to flag losing as many as it takes. If we want to make an impact on Indar, we need to make our platoon/outfit more effective to make our team more effective. We must appoint grrr squad leaders who manage randoms in the other squads to achieve our platoon goal. The platoon leader should be a squad leader for coordination purposes.

Four squads gives you great strategic flexibility. Most bases have 3-5 areas which you want to either cap or have a sunderer at and these are where the platoon leader should deploy smoke to give the squad leaders some better coordination. Each squad can push a tile lane and you can get a serious front together that responds to the action and can flank or concentrate if need be. Amazeballs as that sounds, scaling it up to the outfit level with multiple platoons is exponentially beterrerer.

We would need to split up the map between the platoons to push two or more fronts, or use platoons to attack and defend together. The second would be way too hard to coordinate because randoms are prone to attacking only, but hey maybe it could work. One platoon could even be focused on clearing outposts and the other on attacking facilities. Going really crazy with it, we could split it up by roles and do a full on infantry/armour platoon and an air/armour platoon in coordination.

USING THE MAP TO YOUR ADVANTAGE (EXTRA LEET CONTENT COS I <3 U)
If you want to achieve anything in planetside you need to read the map. Enable the grid filter and periodically enable the enemy activity filter as a leader. They will allow you to refer to things more accurately and help you be more effective as a unit by choosing good routes and objectives you can defeat. If you are riding in a vehicle and can't shoot a gun, sit on the map and zoom in to monitor friendly and enemy movements and assess the state of the front by monitoring influence changes on flags.

Being able to read and communicate strategic oppertunities or threats, especially armour/air movements and sunderer locations is critical. Try be proactive. Guide your driver/pilot onto a flank route, slip in for an extra free cert at a nearby base or take out wounded air/armour on the repair. Anticipate what is going to happen and help guide the unit to victory and a cert shower. Don't allow your unit to get isolated and don't attack areas that seem like they might be soon.

Knowing how to spawn with the map is critical too. Some hotly contested areas will allow you to hot drop in, but be aware that you are constrained to a roughly 6 tile group surrounding your location for spawn points. To spawn on the other end of the map, you need to travel there first or use a hot drop - which is either on the map or in the "instant action" areas which has a longer timer. You can also hot drop on the squad leader periodically, but this is a very long timer.

The best leet tip, depending on your zoom level you can see different levels of detail and you can use the map stats to impress; basic literacy in action.

THATS ALL FOLKS
When we show the ability to play properly, involve regular players and execute a real operation I will be interested in making that happen. For now its back to lone wolfing and occasionally leading a squad for me. I'm booting up my old NC and Vanu characters too, I'm still keen to play those and enjoy their dynamics.

Maybe someone will organise an event, do some tactics, post detail on the major facilities or unlocks. I know its early days and these things take time, but I just don't feel like doing anything in-game leadership like. BF3 2013 is around the corner and I must say I feel the same way about that.

I know some SiB guys are playing planetside and more than you would expect South Africans are playing randomly. I really still hold hope for this outfit thing and the franchise to establish a local presence. Seriously this game is wicked cool. I just wish more people would play it to savour its sweet nectar.

[Stu]

Hye Hubris,

thanks for the post.

- http://mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php/28159-Planetside-2/page37

re the above I'm trying to generate some more interest so will point players to the forum so we can start to organizing a ZA outfit of players to increase our base.

[Snakestyles]

Hubris I feel your fustration and I am just going to put this out. You invest too much emotionally in the team, at times., not all the time. Look I also want to have 40 + players that are charging to the same location but it is just not feasible every game. I wish it were but with the girls playing it can be very hard as they demand much attention, as for the rest of us we all have on & off days, you know the ones were the top players in your team ask were the battle is while there are clear and precice waypoints. It's also hard when you as squad leader also have to train people who have joined the game late.

The flip side is a great game you can command from sundy, lib, galaxy and mossie and they happen too. Your team pushes the points, they roll tanks and sundies and it all just works out. Just take the good with the bad, know that I will lead if you want but will allways pull away from the battle and get my Galaxy up if I see bases worth capping in the lowlands. Also you might want to play and be in a big team but not actually set waypoints then let me know, I usually give you the role because you seem to enjoy it so much.

In short dont get so fustrated, if you aint having fun cos your team is pissing you off take a break, your probably just not 100% in a gaming frame of mind and a break will do you well.

Either way lets get this rolling, we seem to be able to pull in a big platoon quite fast, lets start working it a bit more, lets have more fun!

[Stu]

WHOOO RRRHHHHAAAAAA

Miles you couldn't have said it any better, I know I'm a burden on the SL and this is something that I will work on in future, I understand your frustrate Hub's! I do and I'll make a honest attempt moving forward to develop myself as a better player! Sometimes one forgets but I feel you brother just so you know I'm listing.

Now its down to acting

[s3xy_j0nny]

How does a night of Planetside2 training sound? I will walk you through literally everything you need to know and answer every single annoying question you can think of. This is a one time deal, miss it and you miss out and will have to face my self righteous noob wrath.

Is it worth a total noob like me joining for this? Or am I already too far behind? If it's ok, Stef, I'll give you a shout just before you plan to do the walk through so you can talk me through signing in, creating a toon in the right army, blah blah. If this added noob factor is only going to stress you out, though, let me know and I'll carry on Xbow trolling through the Aftermath maps.

[Stu]

Do EEETT Jono the shear scale of this game is incredible! I can walk you through the signup and steps... Just so busy this week otherwise I'd drop off mah install files... hmmmm but its about a 7 hour download so you could leave it over night.

[RussianElite.]

Jonny join right now dammit! I'l take you through everything, epic game is epic!

[s3xy_j0nny]

I've got it all installed and whatnot, thanks to Jarrod. Will give it a go, but you guys all REALLY need to check out the BF3 expansion as well.

[Phatso]

Good post Stef.

Sorry to hear that you're frustrated my man. I can often hear the frustration in your voice and the issue is that your probably the best squad leader I have EVER played under, and that is coming from 8+ years of multiplayer gaming.

One does not simply “play” Planetside 2 and I think that is the bigger issue. The meta-game is incredibly detailed and very intimidating if you don’t know whats what.
This is the reason why most players on the server (guessing around 60%) simply run into the achtung without care.

However, we are making progress. I think that as an outfit, we’ve come a long way baby. Seriously man, this game is so incredibly detailed, its impossible to understand everything in the first month.
If we stick with it though and keep the enthusiasm up, we can only get better. I know that BF3 2013 season starts early in the year and this will no doubt take a lot of the focus off Planetside2, so lets keep the fun up for now and analyze early 2013.

Hubris, I would love to help however I can and if it means answering the beginner questions so you can get the squad-work going, I will gladly do that. I unfortunately can’t lead a squad for multiple reasons.

My SL’s of choice are Hubris and Snakestyles.
If you have any starter questions (what where how why. Certs xp resources hexagons mechanics guns vehicles etc etc) I will answer with pleasure.

[RussianElite.]

1st tip. Be nervous when flying in a liberator when Russian is near in a Mozzi :P