Planetside 2

[Jimbo]

Wow! Double XP weekend rocked!

Hey try the Gauss Compact S with high velocity ammo, 6x scope, forward grip, and the compensator, it is a pretty powerful set up that way for scoped burst fire. It isn't as nice as that long range carbine, but still pretty decent so I don't have to re-cert another gun.

I've been playing with the AF-4 Cyclone SMG on my infiltrator, and the NC12 Sweeper semi-auto shotgun. They are both pretty deadly at short to medium.  The GD-7F is still insane for a carbine.

I did get a weird bug where I couldn't hit anything. I was dumping ammo from my lighting, and my smg, and not getting anything, even though I could see the rounds hitting people.

[shiznitz]

I agree with you on the Compact S.  I have tried all the underbarrel attachments, and while they are fun, they just aren't as versatile for killing the enemy as having a stable machine gun that works well for most engagement ranges.  That said, I have been running engineer with the Claw (pump shotgun) lately and enjoying that. 

[Mrbloodworth]

FPS patch is out.

[Surlyboi]

Compact S + Grenade launcher + engineer = nonstop death from behind cover during sieges. I went from nothing to silver on that weapon in two days, just holding down the fort during base defenses and spamming grenades around corners onto the incoming zerg.

[Mrbloodworth]

GPU Physics are Now Available, Requires driver update. Nvidia only, obviously. Its fucking Redonkulous.

[Miasma]

Compact S + Grenade launcher + engineer = nonstop death from behind cover during sieges. I went from nothing to silver on that weapon in two days, just holding down the fort during base defenses and spamming grenades around corners onto the incoming zerg.

I guess it's on sale today for 150 certs.

[Miasma]

Hmm, it looks like you have to log in each character every day now in order to get your passive certs instead of every 48hrs.  Annoying.  Either that or the popup is just capped at 48 even though I actually received more.

[shiznitz]

I don;t know if it was a bug, but after playing for an hour or so this weekend, I got a cert pop up out of the blue for 44 certs.  It was in the orange box like the offline certs are.  It has not happened since.

[kildorn]

I picked this back up again this week. Still fun, seems a lot more friendly with public squads everywhere working as a team.

Down side: holy shit hackers. So many hackers. I'm not talking "Kild, you suck, that dude was just good" but "dude with a SAW mowing down the opposing team inside their spawn shields for an hour with what appears to be a no collision hack", and at least 2-3 aim bots sitting inside spawn shields headshotting anyone who walked through their LOS.

[Nija]

The empire specific launchers are out and the Phoenix is balls, as expected. Try it out in VR before you really consider buying it.

Meanwhile, in TR-land...

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/QQryDsaSO7k&hd=1

[Pennilenko]

The new VS launcher is a steaming pile of shit.

[Miasma]

Rumour has it there will be both double xp and double station cash this weekend.  Jesus died for your certs.

[01101010]

The new VS launcher is a steaming pile of shit.

I am very surprised by this. I trialed it the other night and gave it a full 30 minutes in combat. It is really sad comparatively. Charge is a nice feature, but it really hurts in the heat of battle. Not charging is even worse given the horrible damage this thing does when not charged. I was also expecting the projectile to be much faster than it is... even ground vehicles could easily manage avoiding the projectile. Nice for plinking MAXs to death (bursters) and charge and pop those HackMAXs.

The phoenix is the phoenix, though the anti-infantry capabilities are a tad out of whack given it is a better sniper rifle than anything else atm. The shell is somewhat a pain in the ass to steer and I still get the near miss shots on anything even somewhat moving. Also, you cannot explode the shell with the right-mouse click like you used to in PS1...so you don't even get to do splash dmg if you are somewhat off the mark. Projectiles are too fast to use indoors, but the 'dumbfire' mode (bailing out of the camera) is useful against MAXs and reloading after a missed shot.

The striker is the annihilator 2.0. I had it for 35 minutes on trial and already well into getting my silver medal in it. Granted, I had a lot of vehicle targets, but it is just silly to use. Shines when used with a bunch of other lock-on launcher. The projectiles lead the target, so dipping to the ground or even pointing to cover ends up with 5 red rocket tails plummeting into the environment. Fun to watch but frustrating. No lock on with MAXs and no dumb fire is a real no go for me. This is an anti-vehicle machine only which - the way it is going - won't be used much longer.

[Surlyboi]

Rumour has it there will be both double xp and double station cash this weekend.  Jesus died for your certs.

I'm sigging this bitch.

[Modern Angel]

So I have a computer which can run this now as of last week. It's really rad. I'm pretty bad at it, though.

[Mrbloodworth]

Double XP weekend, and Double SC weekend, also new Tank Cosmetics were added.

[shiznitz]

The Phoenix is really fun!

[Mrbloodworth]

Servers packed like a mofo this weekend.

[croaker69]

Servers packed like a mofo this weekend.

Good motivator to buy a membership when your outfit is hopping continents and non-members have an hour wait.

[shiznitz]

The server mergers made a paid subscription quite useful.

[Surlyboi]

Servers packed like a mofo this weekend.

Good motivator to buy a membership when your outfit is hopping continents and non-members have an hour wait.

Even members had an hour wait at some points last night.

[01101010]

On Waterson last night, I was locked in VR ffs. Every continent had a queue of more than ten minutes. Part of me was really tickled.

[shiznitz]

On Waterson last night, I was locked in VR ffs. Every continent had a queue of more than ten minutes. Part of me was really tickled.

I had this issue once.  Never log out while in VR.

[01101010]

On Waterson last night, I was locked in VR ffs. Every continent had a queue of more than ten minutes. Part of me was really tickled.

I had this issue once.  Never log out while in VR.

I logged out of Indar 30 minutes before I logged back in and was dropped into VR. So I was in the ultra-overflow!

[Surlyboi]

Same thing happened to me. Logged out on Esamir, logged back in to VR.

[Jimbo]

Had a blast, even when someone was shooting me from beyond phoneix range with a shot gun...lol.

But had a blast, played VS a bit, and they are really fun to play. The Max is really fun. I never play NC max much, so I'm not sure why everyone is calling the NC Max so over powered.

Oh, found that using the NS-11 with soft point ammo, 2x scope, foreward grip, and flash suppressor, is awesome, great short to medium accurate gun. I don't like the hip-fire stuff that a lot do, so I might even switch my  GF-7 over to it too.

[shiznitz]

Had a blast, even when someone was shooting me from beyond phoneix range with a shot gun...lol.

But had a blast, played VS a bit, and they are really fun to play. The Max is really fun. I never play NC max much, so I'm not sure why everyone is calling the NC Max so over powered.

Oh, found that using the NS-11 with soft point ammo, 2x scope, foreward grip, and flash suppressor, is awesome, great short to medium accurate gun. I don't like the hip-fire stuff that a lot do, so I might even switch my  GF-7 over to it too.

I got lured into soft point by the promise of better damage as well, but have found that the bonus at close range does not make up for the loss of damage and accuracy at medium and long ranges.  I have swapped to high velocity for any loadout where I expect engagements beyond 20m or so.

[Mrbloodworth]

Game Update 6

[shiznitz]

All good, and I say that as someone hurt by the NC MAX changes.  Jackhammer still the red-headed stepchild of shotguns, though.

[shiznitz]

I know discussion of the game is dwindling here but I did play several hours with the "controversial" GU6 with my regular NC guy and I really did not notice any significant effects of the shotgun and MAX nerfs.  I was still able to snipe from balconies with my Claw.  My dual Mattock MAX (no slugs) did well in a base defense scenario where I needed some extra range.  All in all the game played the same for me.  All the things I like so much about it are still there.

[Jimbo]

Oh wow! Back from vacation, didn't play for like 11 days, and last night was really nice. Seems I had 11,000 certs on each character! Whooot! I know it was some pay back for buying stuff and it not applying right, so thanks. And now there is something about continent being taken in 2 hours, with either a winner, or getting points for parts held. Pretty cool idea.

Oh they seemed to have fixed a lot of the fps issues, was running pretty smooth even in big ass battles.

[Sky]

I played a bit with BW's gang last night. Some quick impressions:

I disagree with Jimbo about the fps issues. I pulled settings waaay back and was still getting pretty awful performance, especially in a vehicle.

The HUD continues to be miniscule. This one is the persistent problem for me.

I have yet to really begin scaling the learning curve to the game. They throw a lot of shit at you, and I just want to play not sit around learning yet another set of keybindings and maps. So I'll take the blame for that part. But when I can't see anyone's name or tell who is friend or foe on the battlefield, it hampers me even wanting to try.

My favorite part was for some reason I kept hitting E instead of R when I was trying to gun for BW.

And then when I left PS2, the game threw up an error about not shutting down properly and now my thumb button is fucked up. I use the thumb button for push-to-talk and now in minecraft it's bringing up the in-game menu, meaning I pretty much can't talk in minecraft anymore.

[01101010]

I played a bit with BW's gang last night. Some quick impressions:

I disagree with Jimbo about the fps issues. I pulled settings waaay back and was still getting pretty awful performance, especially in a vehicle.

The HUD continues to be miniscule. This one is the persistent problem for me.

I have yet to really begin scaling the learning curve to the game. They throw a lot of shit at you, and I just want to play not sit around learning yet another set of keybindings and maps. So I'll take the blame for that part. But when I can't see anyone's name or tell who is friend or foe on the battlefield, it hampers me even wanting to try.

My favorite part was for some reason I kept hitting E instead of R when I was trying to gun for BW.

And then when I left PS2, the game threw up an error about not shutting down properly and now my thumb button is fucked up. I use the thumb button for push-to-talk and now in minecraft it's bringing up the in-game menu, meaning I pretty much can't talk in minecraft anymore.

I get that shut down error as well every time I logout. However, I play through Steam, and if the Steam pop-up screen loads after I shut down PS2 (the one that tells you about game deals they have), I don't get that error. I do NOT however, get anything conflicting with it (my buttons and mappings are fine).

As to the other stuff... it comes down to a matter of playing often to get a feel for how the game flows and the tendencies. Having FPS knowledge and twitch helps, but it really comes down to knowing the buildings and terrain and flow of battle. We do pretty good as an outfit rolling around, but at this stage, we do take for granted a lot of the learning aspects of it since we been playing longer.

[Miasma]

They need to fix that shutdown bug, it's been around forever.  Distinguising freind from foe is a little odd since you don't get red triangles over the enemy unless they have been spotted in a vehicle so you have to train yourself to shoot anything that does not have a blue triangle over it.  That's just a rule of thumb though, at long range there is lag before the blue triangle shows up.  Eventually you will know who is the enemy just by looking at them (except for the fucking vanu at night who are just invisible).

I got a few thousand certs from the refund, I was seriously thinking about intentionally buying duplicates so that when the refund happened I would get more certs but was worried they would wind up on my barely played alts.  I should have done it!

[Sky]

Yeah, Blood was saying target recognition by silhouette got easier, but that's a time played thing I guess. Having the miniscule UI, I can't really see what has a blue triangle over it. It's a little better at distance because the triangle doesn't really scale, so it's relatively big over a target in the distance but the same size over someone close. Add in all the miniscule icons (I can't tell where anything is, the icons are too small) and it becomes just a confusing mess of little blue dots. I have pretty good eyesight, but I'm also looking at a 1080p display from 9' away.

I had played an NC heavy when the game released for a couple weeks before getting tired of solo gameplay. No cert refund for whatever reason they're doing that. I guess I didn't spend enough money? Tangential to that, it does kind of suck that I did use my free station cash (and had some left from promos with EQ2 which I played for years) on the NC and now I don't have that stuff because I'm playing TR.