Planetside 2

[croaker69]

Pre-deployed Sunderers and Beacons. Don't keep spawning in the obvious killzone like a chump.

In a defense? They are already gone. There is no other action than to go to another place, or attack the base you just left from the outside.

I have no idea what you are on about. Is this going to be one of those "This is so because I said this is so, and it is therefore so because I said it" things?

Maybe due to different assumptions.  I agree that there is no way randoms will be able to defend against any real attack.  Using coordination via voice comm an organized group can get AMS in position, pull armor and air, start taking surrounding spawns, and destroy enemy AMS to turn back an attack or do an immediate retake.

[angry.bob]

I dropped $20 to get weapon certs since the unguided rocket launcher was not terribly useful. I have to say there is a serious need to increase the ranges, increase the damage, and decrease the lock-on times. The server this is on is swarmed with people flying Cylon Raiders with splash damage guns and it takes a full magazine of the stupid rockets to kill one. And they have to be on top of you to get a lock. I feel like a was burgled. Pretty much the same with the LMG I bought.

Also, the targeting and visual feedback on shots is pretty shitty for AA. There's no visual feedback on how you're missing like tracers so you can adjust and super advanced targeting systems don't give you any help in the form of a little predictive marker on the HUD to let you know where you should be shooting. Unless stuff is right on top of you you're likely to miss even if it's heading straight at you.

THe Lightening is fun though, sort of reminds me of driving a T-20-2.

[Druzil]

Didn't see this mentioned, you can currently get 85 station cash (each) for logging into Free Realms and Clone Wars.  You just have to login accept the EULA and close out.  I just tried it and got the 170 SC.   Took me like 2 minutes.   I'm guessing you signup for a newsletter by doing so, if that's a big deal to you.

http://www.freerealms.com/

https://www.clonewarsadventures.com/index.action


Overall I think Bio Labs are my favorite base capture.  They just feel right.  There's lots of entrances, lots of defense points, there's a good flow to the battle.  Amp stations I think are also pretty fun right now.   I'm not sure on the Tech plant yet.   I don't HATE it, I like the fact that it's hard to take, but I do tend to avoid it unless I'm not finding anything good elsewhere.

[Kageru]

The strategy layer is also made less important by the fact that resource points don't seem that tight. Even when we are getting our butt kicked they seem to tick over at a decent rate. And if I exhaust them I could go idle on the continent we've capped for a bit.

The game has also been designed to encourage solo play, which basically means vehicles, that's why base AA is basically hopeless. You need multiple guns manned and pilots who fly very close in a straight line to get kills. Maybe you can encourage them to dodge a bit, or go back and repair if you are very good.

The jump bridge highway on the amp base is another design irritant. If that was jump pads from the shielded centre one way to the defences it would make sense, give the defenders an advantage and lead to more fights. As it is the system is probably more useful to the attackers.

[apocrypha]

Well I logged on last night to discover that the outfit I joined had got bored of capping & defending the same points over and over again and were instead running mass Flash races through enemy territory.

It was a surprising amount of fun. It's funny how much like Mordor a lot of the landscape looks when you're lost like a fart in the mist!

[Megrim]

Pre-deployed Sunderers and Beacons. Don't keep spawning in the obvious killzone like a chump.

In a defense? They are already gone. There is no other action than to go to another place, or attack the base you just left from the outside.

I have no idea what you are on about. Is this going to be one of those "This is so because I said this is so, and it is therefore so because I said it" things?

Maybe due to different assumptions.  I agree that there is no way randoms will be able to defend against any real attack.  Using coordination via voice comm an organized group can get AMS in position, pull armor and air, start taking surrounding spawns, and destroy enemy AMS to turn back an attack or do an immediate retake.

But that's true of anything. Organisation > no organisation.

[Falconeer]

Let's just say that it seems a disorganized attack is eventually gonna win more often than you would think against a disorganized defense, and that's probably due to the way bases and respawns have been built, topped with player attitude of abandoning the sinking ship prematurely.

But yes, what I am really looking forward to see in a near future when there will hopefully be a little less random chaos and a little more organization is how good groups manage to set up defenses, both from inside the bases and by spawning a couple of squads somewhere far to pick up a swarm of 6 - 12 aircrafts and sweep the siege.

[Kageru]

Organization is not really the issue. A liberator full of randoms landing at most bases will capture it easily because it most likely will have no defenders. And even if it has a few the bases are designed to be relatively easy to capture and fall fast enough there's no chance of getting reinforcements (even if people cared). The only time that won't happen is if they run into other zerg or attack a server hotspot (like the crown or nearby techplants).

Even in the example given though a well designed base should instinctively have a defensive flow. Inner sanctum and rings of defence to that even randoms would see how to defend it. Barring the tech plant (because it has a choke) and the watch-tower (because it is small enough to understand and has a core spawn point) most of the bases are just a random jumble.

[shiznitz]

This issue is quite surprising given that the PS2 team specifically AND explicitly tried to make defending easier through base design versus PS1.  

This never happened. The direct opposite did. You can find a billion instances of them directly stating they did not want the hours long base assaults of PS1 to ever happen in PS2. This tune only changes at the end of beta, when the timers for captures were added, because of user feedback. They fought this tooth and nail. Its the EXACT same Design Philosophy that lead to the Galixey being a Mobile spawn.

I thought I recalled Higby saying that they added all the cover points to he base designs to help defenders.  I don't understand the base designs in the context of the goals you ascribe to the dev team.  I am not arguing with you.  I am just confused that their goal of not having long base fights resulted in the cluttered exterior design.

[Mrbloodworth]

I Just realized something.

A fresh spawned player is worth just as much as one that's been a live for an hour. It was not this way in the original, no wonder I see people falling over themselves to get kills on spawn rooms. In ps1, those troops would be worth nothing. There is always a need to suppress enemy movement, and spawn camping will likely always be a part of that. But as it stands, for outposts, killing 3 people fresh out of spawn is more XP than a base cap. ( it would be around 10 for large bases ).

I wonder if returning to the the solution as it was in the original would help curb some of this behavior.

I thought I recalled Higby saying that they added all the cover points to he base designs to help defenders.  I don't understand the base designs in the context of the goals you ascribe to the dev team.  I am not arguing with you.  I am just confused that their goal of not having long base fights resulted in the cluttered exterior design.

Its related thusly. Porous buildings scattered about, objectives ( including vec terms ) intentionally crossing lines of contention. Mostly direct routes from any angle to an objective, with some exceptions. No walls, near every building is spaced to allow for a tank to pass between. No doors, no windows. Many buildings have the interior space equivalent of the blast radius of a single grenade. While most are Asymmetrical, they still are more reminiscent of "Death match" style layout designs. As opposed to "siege" like designs that have advancement phases. Toss in drop pods, AMS, squad spawn beacons, spawn on squad leader and lack of SOI. And you have a battle flow that comes from every direction and no direction at the same time. The iceing on the cake being that spawn room buildings are typically on the perimeter of an outpost.

There are a handful of outposts that do not completely follow all of the above, but they are rare. Split peak pass is one of my favorite locations in game, so are amp stations. But amerish was the last map to be created, and i feel they have been thinking more in terms of base progression phases and siege like game-play as opposed to the death match/CoD like maps. Split peak is an example of this, there is a large different in Indars bases and Amerish bases, including density. Amerish is the best to date IMO.

[Sky]

I dunno, the PS I remember was awfully similar in the 'let's go do whatever farms the most xp and fuck strategy'.

No, I just don't think you were apart of it. YOU were farming.


And for the record, everyone likes a good farm.

Yes. Everyone knows what a minmaxing farmer I am when it comes to mmo.

[Mrbloodworth]

PlanetSide 2: Choose Vanu Sovereignty, Choose Enlightenment - YouTube

PlanetSide2: Choose Duty, Choose the Terran Republic. - YouTube

PlanetSide 2: Choose Freedom, Choose the New Conglomerate - YouTube

EDIT: Fixed

[Miasma]

Malformed links.

[Mrbloodworth]

Malformed links.

Only for here. But fixed.

[01101010]

Needs moar rocketpods!

[Falconeer]

Flamethrower max in the NC video?

[Falconeer]

Patch notes:

All servers will come down at 6 AM PT for Game Update 1. Downtime is anticipated to be less than two hours. Players may notice the following changes.


General:

Horns are now available for the Sunderer and Flash! Check the Depot under Vehicle Gear.
New weaponry is currently being issued to all three empires. If you are looking for a new light machine gun or assault rifle, head to the Depot and check them out.
A number of changes have been made to Vehicle and Aircraft weaponry. Please see the Vehicle notes below.
Fixed a few crash bugs and provided some optimizations to improve gameplay.
Players may now make multiple characters on the same server.

Notable Bugfixes:

The NS-11 Platinum should now properly unlock medals.
The Facebook Promotional Weapons should now properly unlock medals.
Players should no longer be able to spot enemies without a line of sight.
The Gauss Compact S will now provide players the ability to aim down sights and strafe more accurately.
Destroying enemy terminals will no longer provide a Kill stat.
The Light Assault Jumpjet will no longer break if you run into terrain while in flight.
When holding down push to talk it should no longer become "stuck" when released.
The NS-11 will now have a sound indicating it is being reloaded.
Spawning a vehicle in the warpgate will no longer cause players to fall through the world.
The TX2 Emperor should now provide the correct damage level to targets.


Vehicles:

The tail gun on the Liberator is now located on the back of the tail wing and not underneath it. This provides a greater coverage for all tail gun variants.
Aircraft and Phalanx Turret resistance to the following weapons has been reduced:
M40 Fury
C75 Viper
L105 Zephyr
G30 Vulcan
M60 Bulldog
Personal Defense Weapons (on light aircraft only)
Sunderer resistance to heavy machine guns has been increased.
All Flak damage has been increased by 5%.
The Composite Armor tooltip has been adjusted to be more accurate.


Infantry Weaponry:

New Weapons:

The NS Decimator rocket launcher is now available to all empires.

Terran Republic:
The TAR will provide the best hip fire of this empires assault rifles.
The T32 Bull will provide an adaptable solution to long or short range combat but has a slow reload.

New Conglomerate:
The Carnage BR is now available. This medium-fast fire rate assault rifle has good hip fire and range limiting recoil.
The Anchor light machine gunprovided good mobility and a 45 round magazine.

Vanu Sovereignty:
The Corvus assault rifle has a slow rate of fire but compensates with deadly accuracy.
The Ursa light machine gun will provide a slightly lower rate of fire but extreme accurate fire.

General Weaponry:

Tank mines can now once again be deployed by throwing them reverting the change made last week.
Lock on Rocket Launchers will no longer fire without a lock on.
Extended ammunition attachments will no longer provide more ammunition capability than intended. They all will now provide 4 more rounds.
A small increase in movement accuracy with iron sights was made on on slower assault rifles, carbines, and light machine guns.
A small decrease in movement accuracy was made with the 40 round assault rifles and carbines.
The NC Gauss and Gauss S now have increased projectile speed.
The Cycler TRV now has reduced hip fire accuracy.
The Razor GD-23 now has reduced recoil for the first shot.
The TR CARV and CARV S now have increased equip time.
The LA80 projectile speed has been reduced to put it in line with the other empire sniper rifles.


Vehicle Weaponry:

Aircraft:

M20 Drake: Previously the M20 Basilisk, this weapon has increased top end damage. It also has a longer range before damage fall off occurs.

M60-A Bulldog: Previously the M60 Bulldog, this aircraft weapon has had the following changes:
Magazine size has been reduced from 10 to 6.
Magazine size certifications now 1 round per rank increase.
Projectile speed has been increased
Direct hit damage has been increased
Splash damage will no longer damage heavy armor.
The M60-A has a faster projectile than its ground based variant the M-60G.

A30 Walker: This is now the air variant of the Walker weapon system.
The reticule and first person tracer have been changed to make them easier to see.
Projectile speed is slower but drop has been reduced.
Damage has been increased overall.


Light Aircraft Rocketpods:
Blast radius in which maximum damage occurs has been reduced. This does not change the size of the blast radius.
Damage against Sunderers and Aircraft have been reduced.
Significantly reduced damage against Phalanx turrets.


Liberator AP30 Shredder:
Damage has been increased at close ranges.
Magazine size has been increased to 50.

Reaver Air Hammer:
The projectile spread has been tightened up.
Damage per projectile has been increased.
Damage fall off will occur at a further distance.


Ground Weaponry:

The Lightning Skyguard Turret has increased projectile speed and it's reticule has been adjusted to use the Terran Republic Burster MAX reticule.


C75 Viper:
Direct hit damage increased
Increased maximum blast radius damage

M40 Fury:
Reduced damage against heavy armor.
Upped direct hit damage and blast damage.

Anti-Personnel Phalanx Turret:
Cone of Fire tightened up a bit
Slight adjustments to heat. Will cool off a bit faster and take a little bit longer to overheat.
Pushed out range where projectiles start to lose damage significantly.


World:

The main shields at Tech Plants are now operated by two generators in the outlying buildings. These shields now have icons that display the status of the generators.
Frosbite Harbor Spawn Room now has a pain field.
The grav pads at the Dahaka Amp Station western forward spawn are now functional.
Players are no longer able to spawn at Sungrey Amp Station when the SCU has been destroyed.
Enemy projectiles will no longer go through the Biolab Gate Shields.
Players still in a vehicle once the pilot has logged off will no longer disconnect.
The Phalanx Turret has increased projectile speed and it's reticule has been adjusted to use the MAX burster reticule.

UI:

The Regen benefit of a Biolab will now display on the Tab scoreboard.
All Heavy Assault ability items are now using unique icons.
Platoons should now longer state they are “full” when all squads have squad leaders and there is still room for more members.
SAS-R and Impetus optics will now display a description when hovering over with a mouse.
The TS4 Haymaker and FA1 Barrage now have a tooltip when mousing over the progress bar.
Moving a player to another squad will no longer boot them from a Squad/Platoon locked vehicle.
Players removed from a Squad or Platoon channel will no longer be able to use that channel.
Unoccupied Phalanx Turrets should now display “Press [E] to Enter” messaging.


Visual:

The NS-11 Platinum and Ns-11A rifles are no longer the same color.
The Sunderer Smoke Screen will no longer hide decals.
Lightning Hood Ornaments will no longer be placed on top of decals.
New Conglomerate African Forest Weapon Camo no longer displays Vanu Sovereignty coloring.
A MAX unit will no longer appear to float while descending on a Grav Pad.
Purchased Weapon Camo will no longer be cleared when a weapon trial ends.
The Engineering Repair tool is now black.
Main Battle Tank and Lightning armor should no longer cover decals.
The Lasher magazine will now reload and no longer “floats” if the player is sprinting.
The NC Gauss Compact S Underbarrel weapons will now show a reloading animation correctly.
A player will no longer siplay headless and frozen in a riding pose when killed on a Quad.

2.6 GB. Start it as soon as you can if you plan to play tonight.

[Kageru]

Yay, can make my Vanu alt and stop playing with the random NC bullet hoses. Other than that looks fairly incremental. Will be interesting to see how it plays out though.

[Surlyboi]

Fuck the Vanu in their purple scientology earholes.

[Kageru]

Leotards of power.. Better than the chino pants of the NC anyway.

Also Tech Plants defensibility fixed.

[01101010]

Horns are now available for the Sunderer and Flash! Check the Depot under Vehicle Gear.

Why is this not a standard? Who the hell is going to pay for a horn? dumb

The main shields at Tech Plants are now operated by two generators in the outlying buildings. These shields now have icons that display the status of the generators.

Amp Stations 2.0 I guess. There goes the idea of base defense. Not saying you can't try defending, but tech plants were the only ones with any real 'defenders have the advantage' gameplay. Shield busting sunderers will also see a decrease even though they just started being used more. I am not opposed to the tech plant changes, but critical of the motivations and results. I have to say, amp stations are annoying and fun - annoying to defend but fun to assault given you need a bunch of pieces to get done before the place can be taken. Tech plants will likely be the same way now...

Now about those biolabs... 

[Kageru]

Watch-towers are still decent, so the crown is still kicking. The main factor being any defensible location needs a somewhat protected spawn, which tech certainly no longer has.

[01101010]

Watch-towers are still decent, so the crown is still kicking. The main factor being any defensible location needs a somewhat protected spawn, which tech certainly no longer has.

True. Though the teleporter zapping you from the main spawn room to right under the point is about as good as it gets. Sadly it and the spawn room end up being camped anyway. I like the idea of the spawn room outside the tech plant on the way to the back doors; gives it a flanking aspect - though no one does so in force. Amp stations need a teleporter to the main building because... damn.

[Mrbloodworth]

Flamethrower max in the NC video?

Removed before launch due to FPS consumption. I'm sure it will make a return.

[01101010]

Flamethrower max in the NC video?

Removed before launch due to FPS consumption. I'm sure it will make a return.

I should hope not... the ScatMAX is quite enough of the dumb, thank you.

[Mrbloodworth]

Flamethrower max in the NC video?

Removed before launch due to FPS consumption. I'm sure it will make a return.

I should hope not... the ScatMAX is quite enough of the dumb, thank you.

Thankfully its not NC specific.

[Surlyboi]

Flamethrower max in the NC video?

Removed before launch due to FPS consumption. I'm sure it will make a return.

I should hope not... the ScatMAX is quite enough of the dumb, thank you.

We have a MAX that shoots poop?

[Mrbloodworth]

Yep. Right in peoples faces too.


Rude.

[Sky]

Lock on Rocket Launchers will no longer fire without a lock on.

Well, that certainly kills the utility of lock-on launchers. Glad I bought them with funny money, if I had spent real dollars I'd be pissed.

[Falconeer]

But they said they lcok-on faster now and have longer range, didn't they? In that case, I'll be happy with them.

[Mrbloodworth]

There is also the Decimator.

[Mrbloodworth]

GamesBeat: How long has it been now?

Smedley: It is three weeks since we launched PlanetSide 2. The game is already an order of magnitude bigger in revenue than any game we have. I can’t give you absolute numbers, but we’re growing like crazy. 1.6 million registered. We’ve got a large playing population. It’s going great.

GamesBeat: What are you noticing about the gameplay and what people are doing?

Smedley: Well, here’s an interesting fact. On weekdays it’s an average of 60 minutes per session, meaning they’re playing for an hour at a time. On weekends it’s 90 minutes. We see a large amount of players that will stay on there for hours at a time, though. People are playing, on average, a couple of hours a day altogether. It’s much stickier than the usual FPS.

GamesBeat: Can you go over some of the history of developing the game?

Smedley: We developed it over about two years. It runs on our proprietary Forgelight engine, which is our way of being able to develop new online games quite rapidly. It has all the pieces of next-generation technology built in, so it’s easy to develop. We have proprietary anti-hacking technology built in. It was probably one of our easiest products ever to develop. The reviews are terrific. Every now and again you hit the ball hard and see it go into the stands. That’s what we’ve got. We’re getting great reviews. Everything’s going great.

On Steam, for example, during any arbitrary part of the day. Let me look right now. You can look and see where Call of Duty multiplayer is. We just did a patch, so our numbers are a little lower right now, but if you wait until later in the day, we’ll actually be above them. A lot of people are playing it, is what it comes down to.

planetside 2 4GamesBeat: How many of the people in your player base came from the original PlanetSide, do you think, and how many are brand-new to Sony Online?

Smedley: I would say it’s maybe 10 percent people who played the original. Another 20 percent have played our games before. The rest are new. 70 percent of the people coming in are new to our business.

GamesBeat: Where did you find them? What did you guys do to try to draw new users?

Smedley: Mostly we’re focusing on existing shooters. Games like Battlefield 3. But what it really was the community. During the beta, people started hearing about it. They told their friends. People checked it out. It just grew outwardly. What’s been the best thing about this game is that we grew successfully from a small core into something quite large.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/12/sony-online-entertainment-chief-says-planetside-2-online-frag-game-is-a-smashing-success-interview/#6TzXZkcM9rl24MXL.99

[UnSub]

Smed said the same about DCUO in how great it was doing.

[Falconeer]

Patch has improved performance of a good 10 frames per second on my computer. Nice.

[Mrbloodworth]

Smed said the same about DCUO in how great it was doing.

I haven't paid attention to that title much. Is it gone?