Can I be competitive in Planetside 2 without leveling?

I tried Planetside 2 this week-end and liked it.

Due to recent life changes (growing up and getting a job and such) I don't have as much time for gaming as I would like.

The question is if I should still try to learn Planetside 2. It seems to be quite complicated and I performed decidedly mediocre in my first few hours but I'm not sure if that is player-skill or upgrades.

Solution 1:

You don't need to play much to be competitive, just enough to build the right muscle memory for whatever class you find the most fun to play, which usually takes a few hours daily for a week for solid performance; longer if you can't play as much, obviously.

Upgrades help - a lot - but certification points are easy to get. You get about 16 per (real-time) day even when you're not playing. All you need to do is to log in about once every other day.

Related: PlanetSide 2 Cert Points System

Solution 2:

The levelling system (Battle Rank) gives no advantage what-so-ever, other than the requirement that you must be BR 10 or higher to be a squad leader. Therefore, given the same weapons and certifications, a BR 1 person will match a BR 20 person of the same skill level.

Of course, by BR 20 you are likely to have become a lot more skilled than you were at BR 1, and you're also likely to have earned and purchased a fair few certifications and maybe weapons. Note that none of the certifications are really an "instant win". For example, you cannot boost your health points beyond 25% above stock, and you cannot make a gun do more damage at all ranges, or buy a gun that doubles the damage done without any negative consequences.

A skilled player at BR 1 with no certifications and all stock weapons can still beat a player at BR 20 through skill alone, if he is particularly skilled.

However, this is not normally the case for new players. If you truly are new to the game and not ultra-skilled at FPSes in general, expect to die a lot and for it to be hard to get any kills. You really are learning a skill. If you get sick of dying, try out support roles like medic, engineer etc and stay behind friendlies for a while. Eventually if you persist you'll get better at combat though.