I’ve made a list! The items herein are probably not all entirely likely or reasonable, but neither am I. These are just the things I think would make the game 5000% more like the ultimate space manshoot that I am searching for. I know everyone playing Planetside 2 has their own quibbles and developmental priorities, this is just my pie in the sky wish list.

Onwards!



Track IR Support

If you’ve ever played Arma 2, or indeed just DayZ, you will probably be aware that you can hold down Alt to look around with your head, independently of where your arms are pointing your gun. This is useful for all kinds of reasons, but not least because you can glance behind you when you’re running along. Making the head move separately to the rest of the body has another benefit, too, it enables use of a peripheral called TrackIR, which is a very clever thing. Here’s a video that explains it.



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Now imagine being able to glance behind your PS2 tank as you reverse it, or look over your shoulder as you snipe down a valley. Yeah.

An Infantry-Carried Target Designator

This is pretty common in real-world warfare: a target designator carried by infantry so that they can mark enemy units for attack. This would need to work in conjunction with something, so perhaps a tank-busting missile launched from a galaxy or liberator, or a pin-point artillery piece. (We don’t need any more explosion spam in the game, clearly.) More team-work, more awesome.

A Better Map

The map is being merged with respawning, to improve your oversight on where you land after death, but my feeling is that the entire map needs a rethink. It’s not simply about the amount of information on there, it’s also the clarity and readability of the thing. It doesn’t leap out at you quite clearly enough where you are or what you should be doing. Perhaps when the game introduces aids for colour-blindness the map will be clearer generally.



The Harasser

SOE are bringing us a four-man buggy in June, which will be great. But I miss this light attack buggy, I really do. The reason being that it was a small, fast, weak two-man machine that made pairing up with a chum easy and effective. Sure, there are some multi-man vehicles, but they are large and slow. The old harasser from Planetside 1 was perfect for scouting, or, well harrassing, particularly if you were a couple of snipers or similar hit and run characters. Bring it back, SOE, I’d actually pay for it.



A Sunderer Towbar, Towable Things

The Sunderer, Planetside 2’s handsome battle bus and respawning station, is exactly the kind of vehicle that should be able to tow things. So how about a deployable anti-tank turret and a deployable anti-air turret? Or perhaps it could drop off mobile defences, or healing and re-arming supply crates. Or perhaps a rack of flashes that can be grabbed and used by scouts. Or a recon drone-launcher for surveillance. There are loads of possibilities.

Flight Model / Joystick

This seems unlikely to change now, but I don’t particularly like the way aircraft handle in Planetside 2, and I’d really like to see something that’s a little more realistic that would support something that the PC has in strange abundance: flight sticks. Sure, it’s perfectly playable as it is, it just doesn’t feel quite right, and that means I won’t ever be comfortable with being a sky-jockey.

Any other Planetside wishes out there?