[PS3] Killzone 2

Yeah you can mix a secondary ability with your primary ability but I think there are some rules to it. Let me find some posts that explain it. I remember reading the sub-thread but the details escaped me.

I just unlocked SMG and Shotgun this morning.

SOCOM is not arcadey at all, it's alright but if you don't like no respawn then you'll probably hate it. It also has a relatively higher barrier of entry for new players, all the vets have scopes and silencers. You can only take a few shots and would have to sit through the rest of the game if you die.

True, but if you're good at it. People on the team will watch you play instead.
I was usually the first to get killed in Socom. ^_^
Watching others play was not so bad because I could learn their tactics and routes. It's a quick way to learn the game.

KZ2 should have spectate too. Some of the fights were magnificent to watch.

SOCOM isn't really that amazing, it's just that once you've been playing for awhile and gained an advantage in equipment, it's much more enjoyable than starting out with the same weapon as everybody else in some other shooter, that and I blame R2 being so unenjoyable that one had to resort to play SOCOM for 3 months, I would have gone for SOCOM had the way the game handles joining friends not been such garbage. On the other hand I really would rather not have to constantly play against people with better scopes and silencers on, not to mention it takes awhile to learn how every weapon recoils. It lacks that accessibility that a game like Killzone 2 has.

Ha ha, it's more than equipment though. From my little play time, I think the Socom folks move more carefully and work in group because of the game rules. I heard there are other game modes in Socom but I have digressed. :oops:
 
Played a little bit today, unlocked the sniper and got the boost badge. Total playtime is around 14hours i think. Sniper is ridiculously overpowered, camo + 1shot\kill is a very powerful combo, aspecially considering how slow things move.

I thought i could mix the abilities on classes? Like create a tactician with boost pills? That would be insane.

You can, but you'll need to get the necessary amount of ribbons first. For example the medics secondary ability unlocks after getting 8 revive ribbons (revive 10 people in 1 game). After that you'll have to get 8 healthpack ribbons (heal 5 people in 1 game) to be able to combine this secondary ability with every other class.

On the statistics page you can find a list on what you'll need to do to unlock everything.
 
SOCOM isn't really that amazing, it's just that once you've been playing for awhile and gained an advantage in equipment, it's much more enjoyable than starting out with the same weapon as everybody else in some other shooter, that and I blame R2 being so unenjoyable that one had to resort to play SOCOM for 3 months, I would have gone for SOCOM had the way the game handles joining friends not been such garbage. On the other hand I really would rather not have to constantly play against people with better scopes and silencers on, not to mention it takes awhile to learn how every weapon recoils. It lacks that accessibility that a game like Killzone 2 has.

KZ2 is not that great online. It's okay, but not great. It's not nearly as "accessible" as you make it out to be. Most users have to deal with the absolutely awkward acceleration, and then you've got to deal with the absolutely horrible map design (in reference to spawn point). Unless you're playing a match with a small amount of people, it degenerates into absolute chaos, and almost always has some sort of spawn camping. Not to mention the terrible use of grenades and rocket launchers.

And really, I think it's high time you stopped your whining about R2, it's really bordering on pathetic.
 
I'd like a mode where you soak less damage. Something like the hardcore mode in call of duty 4. I played COD4 hardcore for the first time a few days ago, and it felt like a totally different game. Everyone moves more carefully and it isn't a run and gun. I think with the squad system and objectives in KZ2, something like that would encourage cooperation.

There are a few really good maps and some I don't really like at all. It's a bit of a mixed bag for me. With some fine tuning, it could be really good.
 
How do you define a good map? Just curious.

Well, it's a subjective thing, naturally, but there are several factors. Good flow is the most important: does it push players into interesting confrontations? Does knowledge of the map actually offer a tangible, tactical advantage? Usually this translates to choke points with alternate routes through them, but not necessarily. SOme maps have fewer chokepoints, relying instead of some mid-range fighting but still offering multiple paths to an objective. Interesting architecture is another -- is the map interesting to simply explore, to look at, to navigate? There's probably more, I'd have to give it some more thought.

Mind you, in my opinion the objectives in KZ2 are just tangential to the MP experience. Mid to short-range combat is far more important, in terms of enjoyment. The objectives are just there to force people to vary classes and to move the fighting around. So the fact that not all maps are well suited for all objectives isn't that important (or that there's some inequality in some of the maps), because the real purpose is to kill each other. The game is heavily-skewed towards defense on S&D (arguably on assassination too, supposing more than two neurons for the target) and zone control cycles so quickly (making it hard to quickly fill in the bar) that unless one team is really outmatched, most matches will have a similar duration, even with 7-0 upsets. Contrast this to extreme objective-based games like RTCW/the ETs, or even to the Battlefield games (excluding MC), where the game can end extremely quickly when objectives are lost.
 
I think the MP maps in Killzone 2 are brilliant. No matter what positions the other side takes, there is always a way to get around them or get a good angle for a counterattack. There is no place that is completely save, and no obvious bottlenecks. Fights can break out in any place, and with the ever changing objectives you'll be fighting all over the maps.

As far as I can see there is no best way to play a map, or atleast no single best way. That means you'll have to adjust to what your opponents are doing, and they'll need to adjust to you. Even with only 8 maps that keeps the gameplay nicely refreshing.

The only downside to them I've noticed, is that it can get a little too crowded around some objectives. But whenever that's happening I'll simply try to find a good spot where I can easily shoot anyone moving towards the objectives.
 
KZ2 is not that great online. It's okay, but not great. It's not nearly as "accessible" as you make it out to be. Most users have to deal with the absolutely awkward acceleration, and then you've got to deal with the absolutely horrible map design (in reference to spawn point). Unless you're playing a match with a small amount of people, it degenerates into absolute chaos, and almost always has some sort of spawn camping. Not to mention the terrible use of grenades and rocket launchers.

And really, I think it's high time you stopped your whining about R2, it's really bordering on pathetic.

Whether it's online, map designs or grenades, Killzone 2 absolutely destroys R2, if you're looking for legitimate problems to complain about, there is the R2 thread, you're like a detroit lions fan trying to complain about the steelers.
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Whether it's online, map designs or grenades, Killzone 2 absolutely destroys R2, seriously you don't have a leg to stand on, you're like a detroit lions fan saying how the steelers suck.
Indifferent2.gif

This isn't a "versus" thread, though I wish there was one, as we could really see you try to explain yourself. You throw around "map design" and never explain yourself, and when I pretty much proved you wrong last time in reference to iron sights, you simply avoided the convo completely and left. Big surprise I suppose.

The only thing that KZ2 does over R2 is it's visuals.

My problem with KZ2 MP is that it does little to balance itself out. The game has degenerated into Rocket Launchers and Snipers running amuck. The large maps are absolutely impossible to play, since the game pretty much isolates people into small area's, and the games never really move from there. The spawn points are pretty ridiculous, IMO.

On top of that, you've got the acceleration which makes the game feel awkward. I can deal with it in SP, but MP is way too fast paced in comparison.

Though, as I always say, every game is not for every person, and somehow pretending that your opinion should be shoved down everyone's throat, and then failing to even come close to justifying yourself...well, I think that speaks for itself.

Also, it's absolutely impossible for me to be like a Lions fan, since I was born in Pittsburgh, and I'm a die hard Steelers fan. Just saying.
 
You need to stop being so sensitive over the fact that so many of us, including beatbox whom patsu was referring to, simply thought R2 was not good at all. In beatbox's case he went for SOCOM after the disappointment from playing R2. It's good that PS3 owners who don't like R2 have something better to play, be it Killzone 2 or SOCOM.
 
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My problem with KZ2 MP is that it does little to balance itself out. The game has degenerated into Rocket Launchers and Snipers running amuck. The large maps are absolutely impossible to play, since the game pretty much isolates people into small area's, and the games never really move from there. The spawn points are pretty ridiculous, IMO.

On top of that, you've got the acceleration which makes the game feel awkward. I can deal with it in SP, but MP is way too fast paced in comparison.

Though, as I always say, every game is not for every person, and somehow pretending that your opinion should be shoved down everyone's throat, and then failing to even come close to justifying yourself...well, I think that speaks for itself.

Rocket launchers have significant reload time and snipers can often be blind-sided and is weak up-close, it's actually pretty balanced, each class with a particular strength will have a particular weakness.

The spawn points, other than the two relatively safe home base spawn points, are set by the players themselves, if you're playing with a crappy team and you find the spawn points to be sub-optimal, blame the team, not the game. Want good spawn points? Play with good tacticians, or even better, play as a good tactician. The team with better tacticians often takes control of the map.

The controls has a weighty feel to it, but at the same time the player gets tons of accuracy with weapons and good precision if you keep to short bursts which allows you to kill the enemy pretty quickly, damage-balancing is very reasonable, sprinting actually feels fast, and vaulting/jump over objects provides the player with a lot of freedom around the environment, which are fair, symmetrical and have quite a bit of verticality to keep things interesting, if you don't like it, go play R2. Like you said not every game is for every person, and if this game isn't for you, go play something else, there are plenty of options out there, but if you're coming here trying to argue that somehow R2 is a better shooter for anyone other than yourself, you're more than likely going to find more people disagreeing with you.
 
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I think the MP maps in Killzone 2 are brilliant. No matter what positions the other side takes, there is always a way to get around them or get a good angle for a counterattack. There is no place that is completely save, and no obvious bottlenecks. Fights can break out in any place, and with the ever changing objectives you'll be fighting all over the maps.

As far as I can see there is no best way to play a map, or atleast no single best way. That means you'll have to adjust to what your opponents are doing, and they'll need to adjust to you. Even with only 8 maps that keeps the gameplay nicely refreshing.

The only downside to them I've noticed, is that it can get a little too crowded around some objectives. But whenever that's happening I'll simply try to find a good spot where I can easily shoot anyone moving towards the objectives.

The symmetry is pretty great, great verticality as well.
 
I'd like a mode where you soak less damage. Something like the hardcore mode in call of duty 4. I played COD4 hardcore for the first time a few days ago, and it felt like a totally different game. Everyone moves more carefully and it isn't a run and gun. I think with the squad system and objectives in KZ2, something like that would encourage cooperation.

There are a few really good maps and some I don't really like at all. It's a bit of a mixed bag for me. With some fine tuning, it could be really good.

I think it's reasonable that one can like some maps and dislike others, some of the maps take quite a bit of time to figure out. I don't absolutely love every map but then I would say I like all of them to an extent, some more than others because some fit my playstyle more.
 
I think the MP controls are great with the latest patch, much closer to other FPSs.

Also Ars Technica has an article up about certain shortcomings with the MP. (And they're not the only ones, Penny Arcade concurs)

They take issue with the squad system and the fact that your MP experience (both in terms of enjoyment and success) seems to depend quite a lot on how good your team is. Which is not so good for players who aren't into clans and such.

I myself am on the last level of SP, and will jump into MP as soon as I finish and see for myself.

What do you guys who've been playing MP think?
 
There are somethings I don't like about the squad system, but I wouldn't say there is as much wrong with it as these articles claim.

I mainly don't like that your limited to 4 people in a squad or 2 squads in a faction. Squad invites can be send and accepted before the game even starts. During the game you can also send out and accept squad invites. Sending them out might take some time, but you can easily do this when your dead, or from the safety of your own base. Accepting invites is easy even during gameplay. A message will pop up informing you that you've got an invite. After that you just press select to get to the squad menu, and cross to join the squad. Or rather you press them quickly consecutively, and you'll have accepted the invite and be back playing the game in under a second. Being in a squad also gives you the option to respawn next your squad leader.

I disagree that Killzone 2 is to much clan orientated. If there is 1 thing that a lack of a party system provides, then its more evenly balanced games. Most games will have balancing on, so any clan will be divided over the 2 sides. Good clans can no longer dominate a game like they used to, which also means there aren't as many on the other side that will leave the game to protect their K/D ratios.

I haven't really noticed the much of a single class in a game, but then again I have only played as a soldier and medic so far. But with 7 different classes available, and at most 16 players on your side, it can't be too bad.
 
I think the MP controls are great with the latest patch, much closer to other FPSs.

Also Ars Technica has an article up about certain shortcomings with the MP. (And they're not the only ones, Penny Arcade concurs)

They take issue with the squad system and the fact that your MP experience (both in terms of enjoyment and success) seems to depend quite a lot on how good your team is. Which is not so good for players who aren't into clans and such.

I myself am on the last level of SP, and will jump into MP as soon as I finish and see for myself.

What do you guys who've been playing MP think?

There are a lot of problems with multiplayer but I find little merit in the ars article.
First, the squad system is fine. I somewhat selfishly wish there was a coleader concept so the leader can spawn with the rest as this is the only reason I don't create squads, being a run and gunner. Of course ideally one would think medic in the squad could be fine but high ranks don't really play medic, nor a single medic can do a lot anyway. Lack of a push-to-talk-to-all button is a much bigger offense though, especially considering some classes use shared resources.
Also, it probably wouldn't hurt if the game started with everyone already in squads, still having the option to create/join other squads.

Complaints regarding lack of the party system is understandable, but I respect GG's decision to push clans instead, and they even advertise it in the game (for playing with friends).
Lack of real matchmaking, custom ranked games and the whole mandatory lobby system is totally stupid though.

I totally disagree with anything the article says about the temporary respawn points. They have to be shared, and it's not a game design issue if tacticians on opposite teams decide to throw spawn grenades too close. Tacticians should be able to change the faith of the battle for better or worse.
And again, if he bothers to play up to generals he will see tactician is not a very popular class anyway.

Game does force you to play classes you don't necessarily want to play, as any good game with team based class system would when playing with random people. I think the class abilities are conceptually great. They do punish lack of team work and imbalance, which makes the game so hardcore. While many may not like it, no one has right to want every single MP to be only free for all based team modes.

Don't get me wrong, I pretty much hate the class system, or more specifically implementation. While it's OK to force classes upon you, so many important classes are just not fun to play for various reasons. Some of them become borderline useless except for special cases (objectives).
The only way to change a class is too die as far as I can see. Instead spawn points should be able to be used for this purpose after a few kills.
Classes should be unlocked very early in the ranking. People aren't that stupid, there is no logical reason for scout class to be the very max experience unlockable. It should have been the abilities instead that consumes time. And forcing limited number of terrible weapons on classes is also not the greatest idea GG came up with.

The whole ribbon system is ultra retarded. Some of them unlock experience multipliers, some of them abilities and secondary badges. The obvious stupidity is that ribbon counters are only match resident, thus memoryless between matches. So if you play a longer match you get to collect many more ribbons compared to a shorter one even if you play much worse.

Warzone system also doesn't really work contrary to people claim. The global score is often ignored and many players just try to get the kills or get the ribbons. I suspect once again the ribbon system is to be blamed for their decision to continue torture after a definite winner score like 4-0.

The class (badge) ability ribbons are totally unbalanced. One of them requires pressing a button 10 times in a match, another requires killing n(5?) people with shared turrets in a match. Of course turrets don't really kill anyone under normal circumstances, but who cares? I have never seen more than 2-3 turret kills total in a regular match, yet alone 5 by one engineer. Thank god you can create custom games with a friend and do what ever you want in order to pad stats. :/

Before I forget, the aforementioned map verticality would be more meaningful if the radar worked vertically as well at least for shooting.

Anyway, the game could have much deeper and more balanced customization and definitely much better online setup while still keeping teamwork heavy gameplay. Puzzling stuff.

I will probably start playing in clan tournaments to see if it is worth keeping at all.
 
Most games will have balancing on, so any clan will be divided over the 2 sides.
That's not the case. In general I have to jump through quite a number of lobbies to find balanced games, but even if that was my luck there is nothing that stops clans from creating their own games with balancing off in order to play in the same team. And plenty clans do that until they get bored (I presume).
 
That's not the case. In general I have to jump through quite a number of lobbies to find balanced games, but even if that was my luck there is nothing that stops clans from creating their own games with balancing off in order to play in the same team. And plenty clans do that until they get bored (I presume).

I've seen plenty of games with a clan playing on both sides. And that's the way it goes in the clan I'm in. If we make our own game with all of us on the same side, we simply won't find enough players for an even match. As soon as they find out they're outnumbered against a clan most people simply leave.

I do agree that there still is some difference in skills between players on both sides. Just not the big difference clans can create.

Actually, I have yet to see a single game that perfectly balances itself 100 % of time, no matter what system in being used. Killzone 2 certainly isn't any worse off in that respect IMO. And even if I'm on the losing side, (which I find myself surprisingly often) that doesn't mean I can't be doing well. Failing some objectives doesn't mean you'll fail them all.
 
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