Planetside 2

[Mrbloodworth]

Game Update Notes 09.28.2012

The Beta client has been updated and players may notice the following changes when they log in:


As always we continue to make a number of gameplay and technical optimizations to improve your overall experience.

Notable Bugs:


SCU and Shield Generators should once again be repairable in all situations. We've narrowed down the issue and determined you were doing it wrong. Righty tighty this time.

All Liberator Gun certifications (rear Gun) are now equitable. This does not remove the fact that there is nothing but a piece of plexiglass and the projectiles flying at you in the rear turret.

There was an issue with firing explosive weapons immediately after reloading not causing damage. We've swapped out those training rounds so sorry about that!


Weapons:

We have good news! The suppressors are now working! We also have bad news! The suppressors are now working so you'll see a reduction of velocity and damage over distance. You always have the alternative option to cough really loudly when you take a shot.

We've pasted plastic fins on the standard Heavy Assault rocket launcher rockets, so now they accelerate slightly faster.

Apparently folks using the New Conglomerate scattercannon weren't loading it completely for some reason. We put in a few more rounds so get back to killing.

The Pitcher Certification is now available meaning you can throw grenades even faster. Maintenance has requested you stop practicing with rocks in the spawn rooms. This is why we can't have nice things.

Flash Grenades are now available for the Light Assault. We are mostly certain the blindness from these weapons is only temporary, but you might want to close your eyes before throwing them just to be safe.

Concussion Grenades are also now available for certification. These temporarily disable targets within the blast radius. It may or may not also be the source of gamma radiation mutation so let us know if anything starts to swell or grow.

New Conglomerate weapons are now slightly more accurate. We're hoping this stops them from going "Pew pew pew!" during combat.

The range on the IRNV scope has been reduced. You weren't really seeing that far and we think you were exposed to something. Either way just take 2 of these and hope for the best.


Classes:

Terminal Hacking Certifications will now reflect new hack times. The first of these certifications will ensure the Infiltrator stops using their field knife in the process. Dings up the keypad something fierce.

Infiltrators now have a reconnaissance tool. It's so classified we aren't really sure what it does but it's better than the camo face paint we were issuing so enjoy!

Nano-Armor cloak is now 25% damage resistant at ranks 1-4 and 30% at rank 5. Please keep in mind there is still 70% of that tank round that can remove your spleen. Don't worry though, we can replace it. These things grow on trees. Literally. Spleen tree. Tell your friends.

A certification for Ammunition has been added to suits so stuff a few more magazines in your pants.

The Burster is now available on the right arm by default on a MAX unit. Thanks to an error in purchasing we have gillions laying around. Seriously we really need you to take one.


Vehicles:


Light Aircraft like the Mosquito, Reaver, or Scythe now start with an External Fuel Tank in the secondary slot to increase afterburner fuel capacity. While some of you may be dismayed at flying around with a container full of explosive material, keep in mind you are statistically more likely to crash into a canyon wall. The explosion just helps us find what's left of you.

Flare certifications are now available to reduce the cooldown. Flares should not be used for cooking. Gives the food a funny taste.

The ammunition capacity on the C150 Dalton has been slightly reduced. Truth is, we lost the bigger magazines. You'd think that being bigger, they'd be easy to find, but nope. They're gone.

The Lightning Skyguard weapon has had the magazine and ammunition capacity slightly reduced. We thought about not telling you and just painting a smiley face on each one, but some of you are still touchy from the peace sign on the Liberator.

The Liberator has an afterburner now. We had to remove a few safety features like seat belts and bullet proof glass to make room, but function over form people. Function over form.


World:

We called in an interior designer for recommendations on the Allatum Bio Lab. After recommending new drapes, colors for the spawn tubes, and a feng-shui setup we decided to throw them out of a Galaxy. Instead we've changed the capture mechanics of the satellite outposts which are now forward spawns similar to Zurvan.

Hey all -

As some of you have fondly noted, the cost for certain certs in the game are a bit out of whack right now. We're in the middle of a big certification rebalance which will be up on beta with next week's push. This will affect cert prices as well as cert point accumulation rates.

With tonight's patch we will be re-enabling passive cert point gain and for the next week we will be cranking the rate of the gain up quite a bit. We're doing this so that we can test a lot of the higher level certs which are impossible to acquire right now with the current costs and cert point acquisition rates. I want to be clear that this weeks passive cert point rate is ABSOLUTELY NOT indicative of our final rate, it's juiced way up.

Now for the painful part - with next week's patch and certification point rebalance we will be doing a character wipe. Next week's patch is going to be really exciting, we'll be adding Esamir to the game as well as ungating almost all of the remaining certs and solidifying cert point costs across the board. So this week, enjoy the fast cert point gain, try out lots of certs and let us know what works well, what works too well, and what doesn't work at all.

Looking forward to seeing your feedback and finally getting that Nanoweave armor...

-
mh

[shiznitz]

I have played less than one hour since I bought Alpha. Grr.  No time.

[01101010]

As much as I dislike Higby, I do like the style of his notes as I do the same type of style in my emails to my team.

[satael]

Can anyone say if it's worth buying the alpha squad? (still no luck getting into the beta  )

[shiznitz]

The Alpha squad does nothing special in the beta except get you in.  Its benefits after that kick in after launch.  You have to decide for yourself.  A few of us thought it looked worthwhile.

[Mrbloodworth]

/rant

It's because I dropped out of a Galaxy. Galaxy allow you to hot drop without taking damage. :) (Although it is still buggy and sometimes kills you... Lol)

You see that right there? YOU SEE THAT. This is a responce by a devloper to a user who was CONFUSED YOU COULD JUMP OUT OF A GAL WITH NO DAMAGE. Let me restate this. A user did not know what a DROP SHIP was for.

One of the most Iconic features of any game with the name Planetside, marginalized by the G-AMS ( Galixey AMS ).



/endrant

[Falconeer]

Am I the only one who hates the feedback for your own death? "Wtf?! ...oh, I died." All the time.

[Mrbloodworth]

As you may have read in Matt's post last week, the next update will wipe all character information help us further our testing process. We hope you've enjoyed this week's quick cert gains.

The exciting part of this is the Esamir continent many of you have been waiting for will be available! Pack your thermals, because you'll need them!

Finally, in order to help balance our testing load, we are reducing the number of available servers. We'll provide more details as we get closer to the update.

-RadarX

[Speedy Cerviche]

Been playing this for about a week... Don't you guys think it's kinda slow to gain auraxium? Played somewhere between 5-10 hours and only got about 1000 and it costs like 6000-12000 to buy some different guns, and it's not like they are really upgrades either in most cases.

Also the bonuses for playing a faction that's getting beat down nowhere near good enough. A few nights ago I was playing Vanu and we were basically pushed back to warpgate by well organized platoons of both TR and NC while they didn't seem to be fighting each other at all. When I logged out I saw Vanu population was down to 17% but I was only getting 6% resource/exp bonus. Should be like 50% when things get that bad.

[Mrbloodworth]

Its slow without boosts, but holding bases is not the only way to get it.   Considering this IS the currency of the game, and you can side step its need with Station cash, its not out of character for a free to play game. The new membership plan is also great, just for this reason.

   

    Hey all -

    A couple weeks ago we posted a thread with some of our thoughts on where we wanted to take the Planetside 2 membership. We received a lot of well thought out feedback and ideas from you guys and have made some adjustments to our membership offering based on it. Here are our revised and final membership benefits:

        25-50% increased resource gain.
        25-50% increased XP gain.
        25-50% increased passive cert point gain.
            Note: Each of the above start at 25% and increase by 5% per month of sustained membership up to a total bonus of 50% each at 6+ months membership.
        Priority login queue
        Early Access to new cosmetic items on the store
        500 StationCash each month

    Price will be 14.99 / month

    A couple notes on this revised plan:

        You'll notice that we've removed the previous membership benefit of "increased resource pool caps", this was as a direct result to community feedback. We thought about this a lot and decided it did give a potential gameplay advantage to members. We removed this benefit and added 500 SC to the membership offering to compensate for the removal.
        Several of the benefits have an increasing value the longer you maintain your membership. If you buy a multi-month sku you will be automatically elevated to the bonus value for the last month of that sku, so if you bought a 6-month membership sku you would immediately receive the 50% increased cert gain. If your membership lapses you will have 30 days to reestablish your membership to retain the increased bonus amounts.

    We're excited about this plan and at having been able to incorporate your feedback into it. As always, thank youfor your feedback and continued support!

    -
    mh

[Mrbloodworth]

Planetside 2: Beta patch preview gameplay

Notes

    Only launching 1 US server and 1 EU server at first to load test the servers as much as possible. Pop caps will be expanded to 650 people per continent, per empire.
    You will ONLY gain passive resources on the continent you are currently fighting on (e.g. if you are fighting on Esamir and have 0 auraxium bases, you'll get 0 aurax even if you hold all the bases on Indar)
    Snow will be used to make the terrain around bases more 'dynamic' (you can walk up onto some roof tops, etc)
    There will be some tunnels into bases
    Because it's so far North, the sun never really sets on Esamir
    You'll access Esamir through a terminal in the warpgate, and will appear in an identical warpgate on Esamir (no flying gals through the warp gate)
    They are adding 2 new LMGs, 2 new assault rifles, 2 new carbines, and 2 new sniper rifles for each empire (proper sidegrades)
    The passive cert gain rate will be 8 certs per 24 hours
    New generator destruction mechanics, base shields will now be clearer when they require two generators to be destroyed to bring them down
    Spawning on Galaxy is still removed

Some images:

EDIT: Also, Char wipe and patch tonight.

[Goumindong]

You will ONLY gain passive resources on the continent you are currently fighting on (e.g. if you are fighting on Esamir and have 0 auraxium bases, you'll get 0 aurax even if you hold all the bases on Indar)

[/quote]

Just what this game needs, a mechanic that incents players to not fight in continents they don't hold, but instead, to go to continents they have massive advantages in...

[Mac]

So just now VS and NC locked a continent each, while TR was contained in their warpgates.

Servers down to fix the population imbalance. Not really sure what the problem was.

[satael]

As an extra bonus and thank you for being a loyal beta player,here is a buddy key to aid in your outift recruitment!

Thanks alot SOE for the buddy key but it would have been nicer if I had actually been in beta (now I used my "buddy key" for being a loyal beta player to get myself into the beta) 

[Trippy]

So just now VS and NC locked a continent each, while TR was contained in their warpgates.

Servers down to fix the population imbalance. Not really sure what the problem was.

Someday they'll remember that PS1 changed it so the pop cap was split among the 3 factions.

[Mac]

Someday they'll remember that PS1 changed it so the pop cap was split among the 3 factions.

I read later that it was a bug and the servers weren't actually full. After servers came back up, it was better and I could get back to being run over by own faction again.

New continent was cool though, although the fog can be annoying.

[Venkman]

As an extra bonus and thank you for being a loyal beta player,here is a buddy key to aid in your outift recruitment!

Thanks alot SOE for the buddy key but it would have been nicer if I had actually been in beta (now I used my "buddy key" for being a loyal beta player to get myself into the beta) 

You may actually have a beta account. Similar thing happened to me and Customer Service cleared it up. Check your PM

Been playing a couple of days. Still amazes me that in ten years no other company has tried to make a game like this. This feels like Planetside, that's for sure.

[Venkman]

Question: is there a battlle room/area/instance where you can mess with gear loadouts and weapons like in PS1?

[Cadaverine]

Question: is there a battlle room/area/instance where you can mess with gear loadouts and weapons like in PS1?

Not that I have found.   I had to find out how bad I suck at this game the hard way.

[Venkman]

Bleh. Yea, I'm pretty terrible still, especially with flying. Which sucks, because I used to be awesome in a Reaver.

[Surlyboi]

They've changed a lot of the flying physics, as I find I really suck at flying now too.

Then again, I'm not using my old joystick/throttle setup anymore either, but it wasn't that hard to fly without that stuff in PS1.

[Mrbloodworth]

The New flight model compared to PS1 is very different. But I also like it a lot. Once you get used to it, its rather powerful, but also stopped a common issue with PS1, just being a floating gun. Now, you have to be strafing, or really good at managing your altitude to camp a door.

[Mrbloodworth]

PS2 Esamir Reveal

Hey everyone!

I'm glad you guys are enjoying the new continent and I wanted to take a minute to tell you about the most recent update with the Biolab. I've heard the many outcries of the invulnerable impenetrable spawn room the defenders have in the vehicle bay of the Biolab with the S-AMS, and I've made a change. The Biolabs now have a Shield Generator in the dome, this shield generator drops the vehicle bay shields AND now the new SCU Shields that protect it (SCU is in the same spot it just has shields in the two openings). The defenders will still be able to put a S-AMS in the vehicle bay but now the attackers will have a way of dealing with it by destroying the shield generator and clearing out the bay.

I also wanted to take this time to remind all of the new beta players that there are many ways of infiltrating the Biolab. A lot of you seem to think that the only way to get inside is through the wings on the sides of the Biolab but this is not true. Each Biolab also has anywhere from 1-3 satellites depending on the layout of the lab (EX: Saurva has 1, Rashnu has 3) that each have a teleporter which will let you teleport straight into the Biolab dome. In addition to the teleporters, each satellite should also have at least 1 jump pad that vaults you up to the wings. If you are having problems getting into the Biolab via the sides, I highly recommended using the teleporters since this was the intended design of the lab, the wings were supposed to be an alternate way to infiltrate the lab via jump pad, hot drops, or G-AMS.

If you are part of a coordinated squad you should try this sometime

    Secure a satellite outpost of a Biolab
    Get your squad to teleport into the protected teleporter room inside the dome via the satellite teleporter
    Assault a capture point inside the dome, or the shield gen or SCU

Now I realize that most squad tactics are nullified if a zerg (300+ enemies) is at a facility, but even with a zerg I've been able to highly alternate the battle with a coordinated group of people utilizing the above tactics.

Remember the key to taking down the Biolab is to spread out your opponents. If they only have to worry about the bulk of players coming from the wing openings on the sides then it is easier to defend. If they have to also worry about 3 other rooms each with 2 doors (a potential of 6 more entrances) this is a lot harder to defend.
I hope the new changes help alleviate some of the pain of the recent Biolab fights and I look forward to hearing more feedback about the changes. Thanks again all for being great sports and giving all of the constructive feedback. Hope to see you on the battlefield.
arclegger

Update: I've fixed a lot of the teleporter bugs on Esamir and Biolab bugs in general at these Esamir bases. All of the above info should hit beta on the next update (Hopefully Thursday).

[Venkman]

They've changed a lot of the flying physics, as I find I really suck at flying now too.

Then again, I'm not using my old joystick/throttle setup anymore either, but it wasn't that hard to fly without that stuff in PS1.

Yea, in PS1 I had a (even by then) old MS Sidewinder which worked ok, but I recall keyboard/mouse working fine. BW's context is helpful now though. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting the same effect as muscle memory was telling me 

[Mrbloodworth]

Hey all -

As usual the team has been reading and discussing the feedback from our beta community. This has been a big week with the addition of Esamir (those of you who are NC have had a chance to really check it out!) and the introduction of such a large game changing element has definitely introduced some issues we wanted to discuss.

First up, some Esamir problems.

We've seen a lot of repeat feedback about Indar and the number of regions contributing to splintered front lines and not encouraging enough big fights. With Esamir we hoped to see what effect a continent with fewer regions would have on those types of fights. We definitely are seeing much larger engagements on Esamir when it's active, the number of players participating in the average fight is significantly higher than on Indar. This comes with a side-effect however, in that it is that much easier to secure the continent against an empire coming in and attacking, with fewer defensive requirements, finding a hole can be a lot harder. This is obviously exacerbated currently in game by population imbalance (which is another issue further down, don't worry) which is the larger issue. We've known all along that the larger distances would encourage more tank fights, and we're definitely seeing that. whether or not that's a positive or a negative depends on how much you like tanks, but most of the issues with infantry ineffectiveness vs. tanks are solved over time as more potent AV weapons are unlocked, so the fact that they're a bit over-abundant on Esamir currently isn't very surprising considering we just had a character wipe. Bug-wise, there are some issues with teleporter and jump pads being missing, some floating objects, etc., most of those will be resolved in the next update, and yes, we will be reducing the fog density. Overall we're pretty happy with how Esamir is playing once populations are even and fights are actually occurring. If you've had a chance to play on Esamir when it's more colorful than just pure blue, what do you think of the gameplay there?

Passive Auraxium and it's effect on the metagame.

Earning Auraxium passively based on territory control is causing a lot of issues with the meta-game. It's contributing to players 'squatting' on a continent when there's no active fight there, and it's rewarding people for doing nothing useful or fun. In the next update we'll be moving Auraxium gain over to an active reward for earning xp. You will no longer earn Auraxium passively for holding facilities on the map. There are a lot of support actions (spotting, squad revives, transport, logistics) which don't have all their experience rewards, but our goal is to reward with xp for all useful actions in the game, and therefore you'll also now be earning Auraxium that way as well. This should help a lot with the issues of people squatting on continents, and also make it so that empires with no presence on a continent are not actively discouraged from going to fight there because they're giving up the passive Auraxium gain on the continent they did hold territory on.

Converting weapon unlock to Certifications

One idea that's been talked about quite a bit is removing the concept of Auraxium entirely and making weapon unlocks use certification points. This would simplify character advancement to using one shared resource: Cert Points. This is something we're still in the discussion phase of, but we wanted to put it out there for you all to get a chance to comment on. From our perspective this makes a lot of sense for several reasons; it simplifies the UI, makes the game easier to understand for new players, and gives you meaningful trade offs ("should I spend my cert points on new jumpjets, a new sniper rifle scope or a new assault rifle?"). Obviously pricing for certs would need to be adjusted along with this change, the goal would be to make weapon unlocks take about the same amount of time using certs as they take right now for an average player earning an average amount of Auraxium. Weapon attachments and class abilities would be rebalanced along with this as well. Again, this isn't a set course of action, but a possibility that we're discussing and we wanted to hear what the beta community thinks of the change. Give us some feedback on this please.

Cert point balance is broken (primarily for weapon attachments)

We've got some bad cert prices up right now specifically for weapon attachments. Many of the attachments are priced in odd and unintuitive ways. We're going through these now and setting better prices. What you'll see with this change is something along the lines of this for a theoretical weapon's optic attachments:

Reflex Sight - Cost: 6 cert points - Requirement: None
3.4x Scope - Cost: 12 cert points - Requirement: 6 cert points spent on optics
4x Scope - Cost: 12 cert points - Requirement: 6 cert points spent on optics
4x laser Scope - Cost: 12 cert points - Requirement: 6 cert points spent on optics
7x Scope - Cost: 12 cert points - Requirement: 6 cert points spent on optics
IRNV Scope - Cost: 24 cert points - Requirement: 30 cert points spent on optics



This will give us a 'progression' of sorts in the cert trees. You'll notice that with the sidegrades one of the differentiating factors is access to attachments. Our goal with this is to help define the role of the weapon by the attachments it has access to; long range assault rifle? Gets access to more long range scopes, high velocity ammo, firemodes like single shot and burst fire. CQC assault rifle? Gets access to more close range scopes, suppressor, laser dot, and soft point ammo. This won't be quite as restrictive as this, since we still want weapons to have plenty of customization for YOUR style, and many weapons will be 'generalist' with a wide range of attachment options, but using attachments to help our specialist weapons be specialized is one of our goals for sidegrades.
I know this doesn't come close to addressing every issue that's been brought up, but we're working our butts off to tackle them as quickly as we can. As always, thanks for your continued feedback, bug reports and discussion - we couldn't do it without you guys.
Until next time!
-
mh

[Falconeer]

I gotta say, these updates are really good. I'm impressed by the frequency, consistency, and apparent ability to actually see what's working and what is not.

[Mrbloodworth]

The servers have been updated so here is a little information about changes you may notice.

Underslung Weapons Available

Need a little extra punch? Strap one of our new under slung weapons to a Carbine or grab a Shotgun when you breach your next base. Whether it's a high explosive grenade or devastating shotgun round, you'll clear a room with ease. Certify for using these weapons today

Empire Heavy Weapons

Every soldier knows a successful engagement requires significant amounts of firepower. Prove yours is bigger and show up with a Jackhammer or Lasher to turn the tide of battle. Check out the Store and earn yours today.

Notable Changes:

    Certification just got easier (lower) on a number of weapon attachments.
    Population bonuses now display appropriately. We just wanted to remind you how outnumbered you were.
    Vehicles now pass through shields without any graphical anomalies. And by anomalies we mean randomly vaporizing personnel traveling through it. So no more hosing that smell out your Sunderer!


World:

    Generator destruction effects and voice over are now available.


Weapons and Certifications:

    Shotguns are now available for purchase. We'd like to remind you these are not for "hunting game' in the Warpgate.
    Underslung grenade launchers and shotguns are available for compatible weaponry. The keyword here is compatible so please stop duct taping things to light machine guns.
    Heavy weaponry such as the Jackhammer, Lasher, and MCG are now available. We aren't sure why you'd carry anything smaller than these but hey, we don't judge size.


Vehicles:

    The Lightning, Vanguard, and Prowler now have certifications for Tank Rotation and Braking Force. However, these will not prevent you from being "that guy" in the armor convoy.
    Vehicles now have a critical damage state. This means they are on fire. Beyond the fact you are basically roasting in a mobile easybake oven, it's going to affect their performance.
    Good news! Fire suppression system certifications have been added to repair critically damaged vehicles. We advise not breathing in the fumes from these systems. Look we can't safety test everything.
    Aircraft have had their health increased to compensate for critical damage. Stil keep in mind this just means you are roasting in a fast moving easybake oven.
    Composite Armor for aircraft now also reduces Flak damage and is now 4 ranks. We still don't advise playing chicken by hovering in front of a Burster armed MAX unit.
    Tanks now have access to Proximity Radar certifications. A reminder if they can see you, they can run you over. Pedistrians do not have the right of way.
    The Liberator is now much more resistant to Flak and slightly more resistant to antiaircraft fire. Paint, better armor, silly putty on the wings. We've just stopped guessing how it's being improved.


The following weapons have had some tuning adjustments.

    P525 Marauder
    G30 Vulcan
    Enforcer C85 Modified
    Light Aircraft Rotary cannons
    Light Aircraft special weapons


Resources:

    Resources have been renamed to be more intuitive.
    Auraxium is now only rewarded to active players. This means you can probably stop killing people idling in the Warpgate. Probably.


Social:

    Outfit tags are now displayed on player names. You can now get out there and embarrass your Outfit at will.


Performance:

    We continue to make performance optimizations to improve your gameplay experience.

[Mrbloodworth]

A hotfix as been applied to the server and players may notice the following changes:

    Player and vehicle abilities getting stuck or not working after certain actions has been fixed.
    Auraxium rewards have been increased when gaining experience.
    Experience for capturing facilities has been fixed.
    Pain fields in spawn areas have been disabled temporarily.
    The fog on Esamir has been reduced.

[Mrbloodworth]

Hello Everyone,

Quick update about some important things.

First off, we expect to be streaming the game live from SOE Live's keynote at 7pm this Thursday October 18th (Pacific). During this keynote we're going to be showing off the 3rd continent Amerish as well as talking about our longer term plans for the game post launch. In addition to all that you can expect us to formally announce the release date (we've always said it will launch in 2012). We've chosen a date we feel gives us a great launch and the opportunity to improve the game to launch standards. We have a lot of stuff in the works that you haven't seen yet but will soon.

Announcing a release date during a beta is always complicated. I don't want anyone to think for a second we aren't aware of the issues with the game. We're very aware because not only do we play it, we take the time to read your feedback and do our best to respond to it and prioritize. We've already had more people playing in the beta than ever played Planetside 1 and we haven't remotely let everyone who applied in yet. I just want to make sure everyone understands we are listening to a broad cross section of people who played PS1 and a lot of others who didn't.

Towards that end I want to give you the top issues we're working hard on. We have a team of over 100 working on this night and day (literally) and just because I list the top issues doesn't mean we aren't working on a ton of other stuff too.

Here are the big ticket things we're working on

1. Performance - this is #1 with a bullet. We have major improvements coming in the upcoming patches. We're aware it's not perfect. As it stands now we know the game needs improving in all areas. We are currently CPU bound which means it's more important what kind of CPU you have versus what kind of graphics card. As I said we have major improvements coming. This isn't magic. It's hard work. Planetside 2 is always going to have a higher end requirement than other similar games because of the scale of fights we have.

2. Metagame - right behind performance is the metagame. We have large plans for this that I think are going to make everyone happy. They all revolve around a 3 continent launch. Yes.. we will launch with all 3 we promised. I'm not going to go into detail on this because we have a big meeting to finalize it all tomorrow and Matt Higby is going to announce the specifics. Please understand this game has a lot of Planetside heritage and a lot of what we're aiming for has this in mind. Also keep in mind this will involve stuff like base benefits and what happens when people "lock down" continents.

3. Weapon balance - still a ways to go on this. We have some really good data on this now and we're zeroing in on making this feel right.

4. Remaining certs - within 2 weeks we expect them all to be in and done. Please note this also includes properly setting the costs. We know there are some bad and unreasonable costs out there. They are being fixed.

5. Changing over weapon sales to cert points - this will also mean the end of Auraxium as a resource. After listening to the feedback in the thread we feel like this is the way to go. Keep in mind when we do this (with this next patch) we will be DRAMATICALLY INCREASING THE SPEED AT WHICH YOU GAIN CERTS. Something like 4X. Again folks, we play the game on non-admin accounts. We see the data. We see the issues. We're fixing them.

6. New player into the action fast - we have a nice mini-tutorial coming that will get a newbie in very quickly.

7. Instant Action mode working properly - It's busted. we get it. It will be fixed.

These are only a very small portion of major changes coming to the game. Since we're going to be announcing the date soon I feel like it's super important that you all understand how serious we are about incorporating your feedback and also how serious we are about launching Planetside 2 as our cleanest launch ever.

As always your feedback is appreciated.

I hope you'll watch the livestream on twitch or the VOD's we'll put up if you can't.

Take Care and look out for Matt's Metagame post probably tmw.

Smed

[Mrbloodworth]

Oh, Want to post this, because its just cool. Make sure to hit HD.

We're at War - Planetside 2 Machinima

[01101010]

Hello Everyone,

5. Changing over weapon sales to cert points - this will also mean the end of Auraxium as a resource. After listening to the feedback in the thread we feel like this is the way to go. Keep in mind when we do this (with this next patch) we will be DRAMATICALLY INCREASING THE SPEED AT WHICH YOU GAIN CERTS. Something like 4X. Again folks, we play the game on non-admin accounts. We see the data. We see the issues. We're fixing them.

Smed

What does this mean from you people playing?

[Mrbloodworth]

Auraxium  was a passive resource used to unlock new weapons and equipment. It was one of the 5 items in the game you could gain. Three being resources you used to pull Vehicles from terminals, one, Auraxium  used for unlocks ( Variations, and new weapons for the player or Vehicles ), and Certs used to unlock attachments or tweaks to equipment and vehicles ( IE: Add a scope, or armor plating to a tank, or increase its top end turn rate ) Recently Auraxium  was turned into a different gain system. Active, as opposed to passive, it was awarded with any action that would also grant XP.

So, to answer your question, Auraxium   has become redundant with that last change, and in the need for simplification, Certs will be used to Unlock new gun variants or Vehicle weapon attachments.

Net change: One less "currency", everything in game is now earned Activity ( Meta game, and individual ). With Exception of offline Training ( that is something like 8 certs per 24 hours offline or something ). ZERO reason to AFK in the Warpgate.

[Mrbloodworth]

Hey all -

One of the issues that's been consistently brought up by our beta players is "where's the metagame!?". Good question!

We've been looking very closely at what Planetside 2 needs to have a solid metagame that we can continue to grow from and enhance for years. A lot of your feedback as well as our own observations of how the gameplay of Planetside 2 has evolved is directly shaping where were going with the metagame systems, and a lot of these decisions have required us understanding how the game will play with thousands of players actively fighting, what will motivate them? what will encourage better fights? It's hard to design these types of systems without knowing what gameplay 'needs' must be filled, so a lot of these systems simply weren't possible for us to fully design until we had a few months of beta testing to learn the answers. The improvements we're working towards are across several systems and different scales, but they're all designed to provide a more meaningful, rich, and understandable metagame experience. These changes are going to be coming over the next few weeks, they won't all come at once, but they're all on the way.


Spawning Mechanics and Squad Cohesion

Planetside 2 is a team game, it is simply more fun to play when you're in a cohesive group, communicating and working together with your allies. We want to make sticking with your squad the 'path of least resistance' for respawning into the game. To do that we're adding some mechanics and modifying others.

    Spawn beacons will no longer cost resources or use up a tool slot
    Squad leaders who are actively leading a squad and have unlocked the beacon cert will be able to place a beacon on a timer
    The nearest "hard spawn point" to your squad leader will be available to all squad mates to spawn at regardless of their location on the map
    Squad vehicles like Sunderers will be available to be spawned at regardless of distance
    Players will be able to "Instant Action" to their squad leader as long as the instant action timer is available.

We're also going to make Sunderers available at more outposts so that a push isn't halted by lack of spawn logistics if your sunderer gets destroyed during the course of capturing an outpost. Along with this we will be putting in radius checks for deploying Sunderers in proximity to others. We want players to be able to get access to spawning logistics when they need them, but not have those spawning logistics be so spamable that bringing 20 Sundys to each fight is the guaranteed path to success.


Base Capture mechanics and communication

Since the start of beta we've been continually iterating and refining on base capture mechanics. Our next round of iterations is going to simplify some of the base capture routine by removing the ticket system. Currently to capture a base you 'flip' a point and then wait for your capture tickets to count up, this is a passive process which currently allows people to flip a point and then move to another base, or flip a point and camp somewhere in the base. We're going to make it so that the time to flip the point is the time to capture the base, that way you know if a base is being captured there are players actively there converting the point. As part of this change we'll also be increasing the radius for capture by quite a bit so you don't have to just stand within a 5 foot radius of the point, but can move around within the outpost of facility to a greater degree. This will convert the current 'race to the finish' system into more of a 'tug-o-war', controlling the point will pull the facility towards your empire. Influence will still impact the time it takes to convert the point, and be really important to successfully capture the base. For multi-control point outposts a similar system will be in place with the control nodes each pulling on the rope. Up to 12 players will be able to influence a single control point, increasing the strength that it converts from 1x to 3x. This should encourage attackers to actively defend control points and the rooms they're in, and remove some of the feeling of 'wack-a-mole' that currently exists in the multi-control point bases.
This change should make the result of the base capture be closer tied to the action of capturing. No longer will base capture event end even when you have the upper hand in the fight due to a ticket flipping over for the defenders. You will win if you have the leverage to win, period.


In addition to the conversion from a race to the finish to a tug-o-war we will be changing how some of the rewards work for facilities.

    Defenders will earn bonus experience for actions taken during the base capture, repairs, heals, revives, kills, etc.
    Attackers will earn a large XP bonus upon successful capture.

These competing reward goals should give everyone a strong incentive to both attack and defend bases. We're going to make the reward dynamic so the longer the base remains owned by an empire the larger the bounty is for attackers and the more the bonus for defenders grows, this should help to give some real motivations to hold and assault key territories and also to move around the map a bit and not just fight over the same stale base. Large facilities will have a higher cap for both rewards, and they'll scale down with the facility size.


Another key addition will be tactical base benefits. You've been asking for them, and we're going to add them. Empires who maintain an unbroken line of territory control will be able to receive these benefits at any connected facility, outpost or towers. Here's what we're thinking for the facility benefits, you guys who played the original should be familiar with these ideas, but we want to hear your feedback on if you think these will work or ideas for cooler or better benefits if not:

    Biolab: Reduced respawn timers at connected facilities / outposts
    Amp Station: Overcharged base turrets, longer overload times on facility generators
    Tech Plant: Access to MBTs - yes, facilities will be unable to spawn MBTs without a connected tech plant

Another piece of the puzzle will be better communication of the tactical situation on your continent. We are going to be making some enhancements to the map to show the capture status of the region, and better convey security ratings of areas. This is an area we need to make a lot of improvements on so that can easily know where to go to find the fight.

Finally, we need to make Instant Action / Hotspots work better. We're working on the heuristics for instant action to ensure that it's not only taking you where it says it will, but so that the options available are more relevant, with real "action" that you can instantaneously access. This is another tool to help newer players more easily find and participate in big battles.


Intercontinental Warfare

As we continue to add continents to the game, our goal is to make intercontinental conquest a central aspect of the metagame. The back and fourth of campaigning across a network of massive scale continents in enormous empire vs empire clashes is one of the cornerstones of what makes Planetside such a unique game. With our initial three continents we will be laying the foundation for this global conquest gameplay by adding things like continent locks for total continental domination, continent benefits from locking continents that carry over globally, and mechanics to support retaking locked continents.


With the release of Amerish in the next couple weeks (fingers crossed!) we will be adding specific and unique continent benefits to the game, things like reduced vehicle timers or resource costs, increased ammo capacity, faster respawn times, etc. We want these benefits to provide strategic incentives to holding a continent, and as we expand out form the backbone for empire wide prioritization and targeting. This is another area where we're really interested in your input. What type of benefits would you like to see on continents? What would you NOT like to see there? Let us know.


In closing

Finally I want to thank you guys for your support, ideas, angry rants, bug reports and everything inbetween. This game is very unique (in the MMO world and elsewhere) in that making it great is simply not possible without a dedicated and passionate beta community that can not only provide insights into what is missing, test our assumptions, break our game systems and, perhaps most importantly, hold out feet to the fire about issues we're not paying enough attention to. You guys have been fantastic with all your feedback and we heartily appreciate it, and we hope you continue to be our partners in making this the best MMOFPS game in the world for years to come.
Thanks!
-
mh

Loosing faith, or care about this team, and game.

[Falconeer]

What you don't like?

[01101010]

From that release, it seems like defending anything just left the discussion of playstyle.

Then again, I only know what I glean off these posts.