Planetside 2 is a first person shooter set on the distant planet of Auraxis. In it, players join one of three factions to battle for control of the planet’s five continents in a never ending three-way war. To wage this eternal war, players can pick from five different infantry classes; pilot a variety of tanks, jeeps, and planes; and pull the trigger of dozens of different guns. What makes Planetside 2 stand out from other similar shooters however, is that up to 1,200 players can be on a continent at the same time. Battles where each warring faction has over 100 players present are relatively common, resulting in an informational deluge poured onto each soldier. The developers are very aware of how overwhelming this much information can be, though. This week, I want to take a look at some of the ways they enabled players to make tactical decisions on some of the most chaotic digital battlefields available.
Deploying
Planetside 2 has a huge map for players to conquer. Each of the five main continents has roughly 90 facilities for each faction to attempt to take control of, giving players a huge amount of ground to potentially find fights in. The big question players face each time they respawn is where to go and what battles to join. The question of which continent to go to is an easy decision to make. Of the five continents, only one or two are available for players to deploy to at a time, though the available continents do rotate after one faction has conquered enough of the currently available territory.
Finding battles to join on each continent is only slightly more involved. When hovered over, each region provides a breakdown of roughly how many players from each faction are present in each region. If you don’t feel like mousing over the roughly two dozen regions to see where the action is most prevalent, the map shows small explosion animations where battles are happening at that moment. If that’s still too much effort to find enemies to shoot, players can click the ‘join combat’ button in the bottom left to be dropped into whichever heated engagement requires their presence.
Pinging
The main tool given to players is the ability to ping enemies. Pinging enemy troops and vehicles serves two very important purposes. When members of one faction ping an enemy, the first thing that happens is that the pinged enemy is marked with a small, brightly colored triangle above their head, visible to the pinger and their allies. This is a very simple, yet effective, way for players to alert teammates about enemies attempting unexpected, or in unusual positions. The marking also provides a nice visual indicator that makes enemies much more visible when fighting at night, providing less observant teammates an easier target to shoot at.
The second thing that happens is that the enemy’s position is revealed on the minimaps of the pinger and their allies. Infantry appear as a small brightly colored triangle (sound familiar?), while aircraft and vehicles are given unique icons, all colored to match their controlling faction. Vehicles are particularly dangerous to unprepared infantry, and identifying them gives properly equipped teammates the information necessary to properly position themselves on the battlefield. Even more important is pinging where the enemy’s mobile respawn vehicles (sunderers) are located, as eliminating your opponent’s ability to rapidly deploy infantry to the fight can often decide battles.
Wrapping up
Getting hundreds of players into the same pvp battles is a daunting task, but it’s a task the developers behind Planetside 2 gave plenty of thought. Helping players find the battles gets them into the action that the gameplay is all about, and providing several different ways to tell players where the fun is a great way to do this. Once in the battles, players need some way to make sense of the action. Normally, battles’ limited scales are enough, but with the sheer number of troops present here, additional systems are needed. Having player’s pings provide information to their teammates’ displays helps keep everyone on the same page and gives them a way to help identify objectives. It’s really cool to see a game try to create these massive battle experiences, and I'm glad Planetside 2 was able to figure out a way to do it so well.
In the meantime, I hope you soldier through this week, and I’ll see you next time!
-Mark