Planetside 2

[Mrbloodworth]

Resources for spawning Vehicles is over time and based on how many territories your factions own. Nothing to do with you as an individual.

[01101010]

Hope they'll surprise us on launch day.

Awwww...  

[WayAbvPar]

Certs seem awfully slow to earn at first, but I have done a bit better as I learn the game and my FPS muscle memory starts to recover. Looking forward to flying shit around someday   Still think the first unlock for each class should be at like 10 certs rather than 50 or 250 or whatever the fuck it is now. Gotta give a brother a carrot early.

[Engels]

Its a compromise with the F2P model. It sorta has to be. PS1 you had a pool of certs you could reset and chose differently, but you also payed 15 bucks a month. Here, they're counting on having you pay a bit here and there for certain permanent unlocks. I'm on the fence about it.

If it turns out that without high cert point unlocks you're really an ineffective second class citizen, then this will fail, since its not really F2P then. It may just work tho; I have friends that play World of Tanks without premium and grind the crap out of stuff to earn credits/exp for their tier 9/10 tanks. Its horridly painful and lord knows I couldn't do it, but they do, so who the hell knows. Maybe Sony knows exactly what they're doing <ducks behind barrage of incredulous laughter>

[Falconeer]

My impression so far based on what is available now is the total opposite at the moment. That once you put like 500 - 1000 certs (which is really not much) into a given class, that's pretty much all you can do about it. Sure, more certs give you more options, but not more power. Which is why I said the whole idea of progressing feels stifled.

[Mrbloodworth]

Planetside 2 is a horizontal progression. This is an area they have been very good at keeping. You do not unlock power, you unlock options.

ineffective second class citizen

This is not the case.

[kaid]

Certs seem awfully slow to earn at first, but I have done a bit better as I learn the game and my FPS muscle memory starts to recover. Looking forward to flying shit around someday   Still think the first unlock for each class should be at like 10 certs rather than 50 or 250 or whatever the fuck it is now. Gotta give a brother a carrot early.

One trick to getting used to games like this is play combat medic. Its a great way to learn where people head to and is super easy xp/cert gain as long as you can find a fight.

[kaid]

Planetside 2 is a horizontal progression. This is an area they have been very good at keeping. You do not unlock power, you unlock options.

Yes this is pretty much how planetside 1 was as well and it worked well. You don't gain power so much as you gain versatility. You gain more things you can do but capping out power of one particular aspect is fairly easy. This is a good thing as it lets new players pretty easily compete and gives the people who have been playing longer the ability to fit into differnt roles as needed.

[WayAbvPar]

Certs seem awfully slow to earn at first, but I have done a bit better as I learn the game and my FPS muscle memory starts to recover. Looking forward to flying shit around someday   Still think the first unlock for each class should be at like 10 certs rather than 50 or 250 or whatever the fuck it is now. Gotta give a brother a carrot early.

One trick to getting used to games like this is play combat medic. Its a great way to learn where people head to and is super easy xp/cert gain as long as you can find a fight.

Exactly what I was doing last night. I threw a couple of certs into the AoE/self heal too, so I was earning XP at a decent clip once I found a good battle.

[Miasma]

Can one character switch roles and learn all certs or do you need to have a seperate character for each class?  Like can I make one character who can switch between medic and engineer or would that be two seperate characters to build?

[Trippy]

You can switch with a single character. "Classes" are more like (semi) fixed loadouts.

[Mrbloodworth]

Can one character switch roles and learn all certs or do you need to have a seperate character for each class?  Like can I make one character who can switch between medic and engineer or would that be two seperate characters to build?

Cert gain is independent of what class you are playing. You can switch classes at any time, at any weapons terminal.

[Goumindong]

Planetside 2 is a horizontal progression. This is an area they have been very good at keeping. You do not unlock power, you unlock options.

That is not really true, with the best example being in personal weapon upgrades

Some tradeoffs are just "explicitly good". And while once you have the initial options you're all on even ground it is most definitely the case that in the vast majority of situations the person that has spent cert points for the next tier gun will wreck you.

This is because, while everything has "tradeoffs", the next tier weapons are almost universally better for the type of combat that tends to happen. It is always the case that you will trade bullet speed for a bit of recoil. Bullet speed means that you have a split second advantage in short fights and the recoil is not enough so you can't hit things. It is always the case that you would trade bullet speed for damage, its hard enough with recoil to shoot things at long range anyway, so you might as well do more damage up close.

Its always the case that you want a foregrip over not having a foregrip, its always the case that you want a laser sight over not having a laser sight. Its always the case that you want a reflex sight over iron sights etc etc etc.

The same happens for vehicle weapons, though to a lesser extent. Zoom is always better than not having zoom.

New characters who do not have any upgrades yet must specialize into upgrades before they're on the same level as veterans who have those upgrades even if the upgrades themselves are horizontal.

[Engels]

The better weapons cost upwards of 700 cert points each, not mentioning the mods on each weapon. So theoretically a single toon, after a while of grinding, can get the best weapon in ONE class, while someone that's paying for advancement can get all the good weapons/vehicle mods at once.

The versatility vs power isn't the same as in PS1. In PS1, you could recert if you weren't happy in a specific role. In PS2, you're stuck with what you've spent your certs on, unless I'm very much mistaken.

[Falconeer]

I argue that the better weapons are not better at all.

[Engels]

I argue that the better weapons are not better at all.

I'd argue the contrary, but lo and behold, I'm unable to test this one way or the other because I don't have 700 cert points lying around, having to have spent a bunch on nanoweave armor so I'm not a one-shot wonder to a cloaker with a shotty.

[Mrbloodworth]

I have tested them, they are situational. Even HA.

As a heavy, you start with a dumb fire launcher, it has high damage. Your options are an AA launcher, that can only lock and and target air, or a ground version that has lock on too, but can only do ground. Both have less out put of the one you start with.

The idea that this is anywhere close to comparable to having a sword that does more damage to your opponent ( Vertical progression ) is out there. I have seen more vertical progression in Medal of honor and CoD. A few weeks back they gave retarded amounts of certs, I have had a full kited and unlocked Toon before. When specialized, you will get trounced by the wrong situation. Engels has a point though, this is not as tight as PS1 was. You are not mistaken Engels about the certs, you can not un-spend them. However they are not ability points or the like, there is no upper limit to how many you can have, nor is cert gain locked to any role, and many unlocks are cross Class.

[01101010]

I got pretty damn good with the Suppressor 

[Yoru]

I have tested them, they are situational. Even HA.

As a heavy, you start with a dumb fire launcher, it has high damage. Your options are an AA launcher, that can only lock and and target air, or a ground version that has lock on too, but can only do ground. Both have less out put of the one you start with.

I call bullshit. I have all three of those unlocked. You're correct for the dumbfire vs. the homing anti-tank missile launcher; the former gives you more damage, while the latter semi-guarantees a hit if you lock on (barring IR smoke upgrades or terrain).

However, the SAM launcher is just plain 100% better at shooting down aircraft than the dumbfire launcher, because aircraft move fucking fast. The only thing you'll be firing the dumbfire launcher at is grounded aircraft or maybe Galaxies while they take-off/land.

It gets much more egregious when you look at fighter aircraft. All fighters start out with a simple all-around gun as the primary weapon and no secondary weapon. Yes, you can sidegrade the primary weapon, but once you spend the nearly 1000 cert points to unlock a secondary, you are straight-up better off than before.

Adding a secondary means you're strengthening your capabilities in one arena while sacrificing nothing; there is absolutely no case where you'd choose not to have a secondary at all. You can get the A2S rocket pods and thus vastly increase your efficacy vs. hard targets on the ground; have you tried killing a tank with the basic primary gun? The rockets are essential for effective A2S firepower.

Alternately, you get the homing A2A missiles and become significantly more deadly against other aircraft - in particular, against other fighters. Between missile launches, you can swap back over to the gun and continue to harass your target, who now has to worry about both evading your missile and evading your stream of hot lead. You are considerably more powerful, period.

It's not quite pay-to-win, but there is a significant jump up in efficacy with your first weapon unlocks for most vehicles.

[01101010]

I have tested them, they are situational. Even HA.

As a heavy, you start with a dumb fire launcher, it has high damage. Your options are an AA launcher, that can only lock and and target air, or a ground version that has lock on too, but can only do ground. Both have less out put of the one you start with.

I call bullshit. I have all three of those unlocked. You're correct for the dumbfire vs. the homing anti-tank missile launcher; the former gives you more damage, while the latter semi-guarantees a hit if you lock on (barring IR smoke upgrades or terrain).

So this thing acts like a Decimator that upgrades to a Striker? Just for reference to an old fart

[Goumindong]

The better weapons cost upwards of 700 cert points each, not mentioning the mods on each weapon.

Currently the second Medic Weapon for Vanu at 48 cert points is better than the base in every way. It is more accurate under sustained or initial fire and shoots faster. As a recompense it has faster damage falloff.

Faster damage falloff is worthless since you're going to be close enough for it to not matter or not hitting/killing targets fast enough anyway.

The ammo for this, at 50 cert points is currently bonus damage for slower bullet travel time. Since bullets travel so fast anyway and again, since you can't hit anything super far away fast enough to kill it due to recoil this drawback doesn't matter. So you buy it and your gun does more damage.

Then you add on a laser sight or foregrip for another 50 cert points for explicitly better recoil mechanics or hip accuracy and a night vision sight(or reflex sight) for easier time aiming at the medium range targets you now explicitly out-dps and out shoot because your upgrades are explicitly upgrades.

Most classes have an upgrade weapon that fits in this category (like the minigun for TR heavies. Straight up baller upgrade) as do most vehicle guns (the .50 cal is a straight up upgrade from the initial "anti-everything gun" on tanks and Sunderers)

And lets not forget the upgrades like "more hit points" or "you take less damage"...

Its true that two people who have the same upgrade points will have had to chose between two different advantage paths but this is not at issue. At issue is the claim that a new character is not disadvantaged compared to an old character in a straight up fight and this is just plain not true. The Older character will have unlocked some upgrade path and that upgrade path while maybe comparable to other upgrade paths will be strictly superior to nothing.

[Kitsune]

So I decided to log in yesterday and got a faceful of Jesusfuck what the hell is going on?  I logged in, the game dropped me in a pod right smack next to an enemy base.  Which would be fine, if there were any friendlies within a mile of me.  There weren't, and a passing tank shot me.

I then respawned in friendly territory, which resembles a kicked anthill.  Other players are scattering off in every direction.  People are spawning Sunderers and then driving off without any passengers.  Not one person seems to have the first clue about what's going on, where the enemy is, or what anyone is doing.  Eventually I get one-shotted somehow.

Respawn again, oh there goes a friendly tank.  Without a gunner.  I race after it and manage to get in, and ride along as the driver proceeds to head straight for the closest enemy base.  Alone.  His valiant charge lasts until we run up against three enemy tanks loitering around their base, at which point we explode.

Respawn again, and change class to engineer.  Walk outside to where three other players are taking potshots at the enemy base and tanks.  I have no idea if they're hitting anything.  A tank rolls by, I shoot it.  Nothing happens.  I have no idea whether Pulsars still have an armor-piercing mode, so I randomly hit buttons and only accomplish going into single-fire mode, which doesn't really help.  A friendly tank comes by with smoke coming out of it, so I pull out my armor fixer and start repairing it, up until it bumps into me and I fall through the ground.  Welp.

At that point, I just logged out.

[Goumindong]

There is a single fire mode?

[Falconeer]

some weapons have more than one fire mode. It's the B key.

[01101010]

So I decided to log in yesterday and got a faceful of Jesusfuck what the hell is going on?  I logged in, the game dropped me in a pod right smack next to an enemy base.  Which would be fine, if there were any friendlies within a mile of me.  There weren't, and a passing tank shot me.

I then respawned in friendly territory, which resembles a kicked anthill.  Other players are scattering off in every direction.  People are spawning Sunderers and then driving off without any passengers.  Not one person seems to have the first clue about what's going on, where the enemy is, or what anyone is doing.  Eventually I get one-shotted somehow.

Respawn again, oh there goes a friendly tank.  Without a gunner.  I race after it and manage to get in, and ride along as the driver proceeds to head straight for the closest enemy base.  Alone.  His valiant charge lasts until we run up against three enemy tanks loitering around their base, at which point we explode.

Respawn again, and change class to engineer.  Walk outside to where three other players are taking potshots at the enemy base and tanks.  I have no idea if they're hitting anything.  A tank rolls by, I shoot it.  Nothing happens.  I have no idea whether Pulsars still have an armor-piercing mode, so I randomly hit buttons and only accomplish going into single-fire mode, which doesn't really help.  A friendly tank comes by with smoke coming out of it, so I pull out my armor fixer and start repairing it, up until it bumps into me and I fall through the ground.  Welp.

At that point, I just logged out.

Now THAT sounds like the PS I used to know. 

[Falconeer]

Smed says we need a clean install. Patching the beta client won't do.

[Sky]

Son of a. Not really surprised though, given how many gigs my client wants to download. I'll just nuke it until they put out the release client.

Also, lol hammered servers.

[Mrbloodworth]

I plan on downloading from steam. Even if its likely just the launcher.

[Mrbloodworth]

Below are a few additional changes we wanted to list from the update earlier this week Most are bug fixes:

Classes:

    Icarus Jumpjets have been removed as a certification.
    Infiltrators can no longer use shotguns.
    Purchasing maximum ammo capacity on the Lightning Skyguard will not lower your magazine size.


Weapons:

    The smoke launcher listed as the underbarrel shotgun has been removed for the Light Assault/Engineer carbine.
    The TR MSW-R will now show a magazine during reload.
    The Suppressor and Flash Suppressor are now attachable on the T1B Cycler.
    Soft and Velocity Ammo, the Suppressor, Flash Suppressor, Underbarrel shotgun, and smoke launcher are now available on the T1S Cycler.
    Players can now equip attachments to the Gauss Compact S Carbine.
    The Pandora shotgun will now display a magazine during reload animation.
    The NC Stalker is now available for purchase.
    Anti-Armor ammunition certification has been removed.
    The V10 sniper rifle now has the correct attachment certifications available and no longer has an incorrect animation with the iron sights.
    The T16 Soft Point ammunition can now be purchased with certifications.
    Purchasing a Manticore will now correctly grant the item.
    The T7 mini-chaingun extended magazine no longer shows up under the Rail section of the loadout.
    The NC Rebel pistol will no longer present the player with an iron sight when zooming in.
    Purchasing the 4X Laser Scope on the GD-7F will no longer unlock the 6X Scope.
    C4 can now be placed while sprinting.
    Players can now equip a suppressor to the EM6 Warlord.
    The Ts4 Haymaker can now equip purchased certifications.


UI:

    No one but an Outfit Leader can now transfer Outfit Leadership.
    Squad members can no longer spawn on a dead squad leader.
    The deployment notification (Deploy ) will now only appear when a player is stopped.
    

• Manually resizing the window will properly scale the UI.
• The Prowler anchored mode will now show up in the HUD correctly.
• Keybindings will now clear properly when holding the Escape key.
• Purchasing mines will now display an increase in quantity as intended.
• All Outfit members can now effectively use the Outfit channel, not just the channel creator.
• Kill assists will now properly display their source of damage.
• The Squad invite window will no longer remain on the HUD after receiving multiple invites.
• The Recon Detect Device Icon will no longer overlap other minimap indicators.
• The flight movement controls should appear properly labeled with keybindings.
• Auto Squad mechanics will now execute at the correct time for new players.
• Grenades should no longer disappear from loadout when empty.
• Minimap icons are now present for Kawatee Amp Station on Amerish.
• The Eisa Tech Plant minimap icons are now present when in the Eisa Mining Operatoin spawn room.
• The minimap will now properly display data when traveling at high speed.
• The Spawn Beacon cooldown timer will persist regardless of whether a player logs in and out of the game.
• The Quick Action Menu will no longer cut off a players name if they have a title equipped.
• The Instant Action cooldown is now 15 minutes.
• The ammunition counter will now properly update on the ESF HUD.
• Using the Ask for Help functionality while dead will no longer cause the player to become stuck.
• Using a terminal will no longer cancel reloading.

World:

    A MAX corpse will no longer block a terminal from use.
    Tumas Tech Plant Capture Point is now functioning.
    New players will no longer have a cool down on Instant Action after landing in a drop pod.
    Players can no longer be killed by interacting with certain pillars in the warpgate.
    The Saurva forward spawn on Indar will no longer revert capture if an opposing empire isn't within range.
    The Ymir Bio Lab jump pads are all now functional.
    Infiltrator "hold breath" is now bindable to a key.
    Players are no longer able to become stuck in a building at the Ascent on Amerish.
    Players will now collide with opposed empire soldiers.
    Regional influence will now display correctly at West Pass Watchtower.
    The Howling Pass Checkpoint spawn room now has a pain field.
    The pain field in Quartz Ridge Camp no longer extends beyond the respawn room.
    The Pain Field in Torremar Storage Yard now works as intended.
    The Empire Pie Chart will no longer display negative values.
    Spawn Beacons can no longer be placed indoors.
    The Wokuk Amp Station Vehicle terminal will no longer spawn vehicles into walls.
    The gravity pads at Howling Pass Checkpoint are now functioning as intended.
    The Aramax Chemical Company gravity elevator pads will now function correctly.
    Players should no longer spawn into the game prior to the facility structure terrain.
    The Bastion gravity pads on Amerish will now function as intended.
    Spawning at the East Canyon Checkpoint will no longer result in the players death.
    Capture point B at the J908 Impact Site can now be captured.


Visuals:

    Infantry will no longer shake when in an idle stance.
    The Jackhammer will no longer leave the players hand while firing.
    The Phantom sniper rifle sights now appear correctly when using them.
    The Laser Sight particle effect is now functioning as intended.
    Grenades should no longer warp through the air when thrown.
    The Recon Detect Device glowing orbs should now be visible when shot at close range.
    Phalanx Anti-Ground turrets should no longer play the recoil animation twice for each shot fired.
    The wheels and handlebar will now function and turn in the right direction.
    The C4 animations should now look more natural.
    The animations for throwing and detonating C4 should now look correct.


Audio:

    Players occupying the same vehicle should now be able to hear each others spotting audio.
    Using the record function in the microphone test settings will no prevent voice functionality.

Relevant to the current discussion:

Hey all -

Based on a lot of feedback on the current weapon cert prices being too high from a time investment point of view, we're going to be making some adjustments to both cert gain rate and cert costs for weapon unlocks. This will affect both vehicle and infantry weapons.

Some notes:
1 - Our goal here is to reduce the overall time investment for weapons by about 30% on the top end weapon unlocks.
2 - StationCash prices are remaining exactly where they are.

We're doing two things to accomplish this change.

First, we'll be changing the XP:Cert ratio to 250:1. So you'll be earning cert points twice as fast as the current build.

Second, we'll be adjusting many of the cert prices to compensate for this increase, most certs for things like class abilities,attachments, etc. will be doubling to maintain the same overall time investment as current, but weapon certs will be increasing by a smaller amount or in some cases staying the same, effectively reducing the total time investment for unlocking items. The new weapon cert costs will be:

SC Cost | Old Cert Cost | New Cert Cost | Overall time investment delta
----250 --|--------- 50--------|---------100--- ----|---------0%
----500 --|---------250------| ---------250-------| ---------50%
----700 --|---------375------| ---------500-------| ---------33%
----700 --|---------550------| ---------750-------| ---------32%
----700 --|---------725------| --------1000-- ---| ---------31%

At launch all weapons will fall into one of those 5 price categories. As you can see, these prices combined with doubling the cert gain rate effectively cuts the total time investment for the top end weapons down by 30+% for all players.

As always, thanks for your continued feedback about the game. And remember, that doesn't end when the beta does, we want to keep hearing from you throughout the life of the game.

-
mh

[Ratman_tf]

Heh. My first moment in PS2, I got dropped by pod, landed and some dude was standing there and shot me dead.
I then spent a few minutes respawning and dying to various stuff.
I think I killed one person when I took a MAX suit.

So far game is confusing and unintuitive. I can't point out one specific thing, but the whole of the UI screams "PISS OFF!" to me.

[Miasma]

Got into beta on the last day and it looks like fun.  As mentioned by others I had no clue what I was doing.  So I can't heal myself as a medic, that medic gun is only good on others?  I'll have to scrounge around some wiki's this weekend.

[Goumindong]

Got into beta on the last day and it looks like fun.  As mentioned by others I had no clue what I was doing.  So I can't heal myself as a medic, that medic gun is only good on others?  I'll have to scrounge around some wiki's this weekend.

Press f. aura healing ability

[UnSub]

If people on f13.net - who aren't exactly new to MMOs - are finding PS2 unintuitive, the I predict this game won't be the success SOE wants it to be.

[WayAbvPar]

It takes a few hours to acclimatize, but it is pretty fun once you have an idea of WTF is going on. Reminds me of a space aged WWIIOL. The map isn't quite as big, but the feeling of having to search for battles, limited spawn resources, etc are very similar. Probably why I learned to like it 

[Jobu]

I'm tempted to play "tour guide" or try to find a Planetside University outfit the first few weeks to help players get situated and comfortable with the game. It was always fun running into players like that in EVE, maybe it's time for me to return the favor.