Game Update 13: What to expect and when.

Implants as consumables is a terrible TERRIBLE idea. It's the first real steps to pay to win I can see. These are a straight up advantage that you can purchase with in-game certs which you can boost with SC or just buy them with SC. This will give people who pay a straight up advantage.

You cannot have a competitive game if you have this. The implants as consumables need to go pronto.

Rest of the patch looks great but it's ruined by implants as consumables. I've never once accused SoE of moneygrabbing but that's exactly what this is.

hahahaha.. i saw that! but registered it as a typo because it's SOE.

I can't believe you are going to add implants. I feel so stupid for thinking this game would not be P2W forever. Ugh

The implants should NOT cost certs, they should cost infantry resources. Progress is already slow as it is in this game, I would hate to have to spend precious certs on some temporary item just so I can keep up with other players. Cert gain for premium members is also very high compared to those who don't pay. You should not have to pay with certs or station cash for a temporary item, unless you are renting it.

This game will really start favouring those who pay money, turning it into a pay-to-win game. You may think that the abilities that these implants give are minor but you are starting down a very slippery slope here. I have seen it happen before and I guarantee it will happen with this game if you do not stop and reverse your course of action right away. First you justify selling a minor advantage for real money. Next you push it a little further. This cycle eventually ends up with the game giving massive advantages to those who pay.

Resource boosts should also be removed. Resources buy advantages (vehicles, grenades etc.) If those who pay gain more resources they have a clear advantage over those who do not pay.

Implants as stated will be planetside2's TOA = look up; TOA killed daoc.

SOE, you said you hate cheaters. So stop selling skill.

What they should do just make implants unlock-able with certs/SC, and using them costing resources. Like how you unlock C4 with certs and use 100 resources every time you use it.

So, I understand that 99% of you didn't play PS1. As such, you have no experience with implants and how they worked in PS1. I was surprised to find out (along with pretty much every other good thing in PS1) that implants weren't in the game at launch.

In PS1, you gained an implant slot, up to a maximum of 3, as you gained BR. There were basically two levels of players: those with 3 implant slots, and those waiting to get their three implant slots so they could compete. I can't stress enough how much of an advantage implants are and will be yet again.

The entire concept of implants as consumable items is a joke. I'm an ex sportbike racer. As such, I always want to compete at the maximum level possible, given the rules I'm allowed. Being allowed to use implants and not using them simply due to cost considerations makes the game un-fun, because I know for sure I'm not as competitive as I could be and I'm put in that situation simply because of cost considerations. Do I have the money to spend? Sure. Will I spend what will probably amount to more than $15/month to use implants for a game that I don't want to pay for anyway? Nope.

500 SC is $5. That means 1 cert = $0.01. Now, we don't know how many implant slots we'll be allowed, and what implants go in which slots (the combinations player lists to use together make me laugh, because I'm almost positive the combos won't work due to the devs making said implants compete for the same slots). If we're allowed to use 3 implants, and if each implant costs 50 certs per use, and each use gives you an hour, that is $1.50 per hour cost for gameplay, assuming that SOE gives parity to SC and certs. If I play the game for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's 10 hours. That's $15/week in cost in SC. That's $60/month.

More than one player mentioned that "you can make 1000 certs in an afternoon easily." Well, I'm not one of those players. I don't drive tanks, I don't fly ESFs and I don't design my gameplay style around maximizing cert production. I play the game the way I like to. In fact, earning potential wise, it's more efficient for me to buy SC and purchase guns etc. with real cash than for me to farm certs in game, given my hourly bill rate (which is quite high I assure you) and my lack of motivation to farm certs.

Regardless, I'm not paying $60 a month just to use implants. 10 hours a week may seem like a lot of play time to some, and not much to others (you need to get out of the house lol), but I'm sure once we find out the details of the hourly cost of implant use, it's going to be quite high indeed.

If SOE thinks this is a good design, let's just start using SC and certs for resources- make players pay for their ammo, their grenades, their vehicles, their medpacks etc. and see if they have a player base left after a month.

Players will very quickly (read: instantly) grow to resent players who have implants when they don't, particularly when they can't earn enough certs/SC quickly enough to compete. And again, you think you know, but you have no idea. Implants will confer extreme advantages to those who have them. It may seem like a small difference one way or the other, but while subtle, the advantages are force multipliers in the hands of an intelligent player and will make average players with some smarts positively lethal.

There will be more player hate to come out of this than all the Harasser, ZOE, C4 etc. threads combined. Game on.

I pay for premium membership and boosts.

But increased XP gain and increased resource gain is almost pushing it as far as giving advantages to paying members. I'm all for SOE turning a nice profit and doing well, but there is an inflection point where giving too many advantages to paying customers will result in non-paying customers losing interest, which will in turn negatively affect your paying customers.

Before you know it, what you thought was a revenue-generating idea just cost you valuable players. Yes, the players who don't pay are still valuable, as they are necessary to maintain your paying customers.

Implants as a consumable that can be purchased with SC is a bad idea. Rethink this one.

Love the update otherwise.

I don't like the idea of buying the implants with certs or real money. It really sounds like a pay to win.

Imagine the advantage you have when you are not visible with thermal vision. And now imagine only the richest can buy this upgrade... I was hoping to have it for infantry resources (for a limited amount of time and for about 200-300 infantry resources per implant), for certs like every other upgrade or even for free the idea being everyone choose a different build but has something special compared to the others.

Edit: Also I think the advantages given by the implants are too disbalanced. What is the point of choosing an EMP resistance rather than autospot?

I must have been targeted by an EMP grenade only once in about 300hours of playing Oo but I have taken an outrageous number of sniper bullets without knowing where the sniper is...

Please do not ruin my most favorite game with this Pay to Win concept. Even if they'll cost only 5 certs it will be wrong. Certs should always be here to purchase only PERMANENT stuff. I suggest making implants extremely expensive - like 2000certs/2000SC for every single one of them. Once you unlock it you can access it and use freely like you can use suit slots. Yes we can also discuss possibility to turn them into consumable, but then it should work like other consumables - unlock them for certs and then buy them for resources.

I don't want to be only negative - other changes - pistols, smg, ESF update are looking amazing, id only wish that upcoming ESF weapons would be empire specific - each empire gets one, but ... i don't know.... maybe i just want too much

Cheers to Dev team and keep up the good work But please take player's feedback into account, you are entering very dangerous grounds with these implants, think twice before you do something very wrong.

While I agree with this approach, what's happening is power creep. Suddenly, it now costs XXX total resources to run an HA guy an hour etc. etc. So now you have to choose between running implants, grabbing a MAX etc. And out of what resource pool do the resources come from?

I don't get why do Implants have to be consumables. It seems completely stupid to me.
Just make them cost 1000 Certs and 750 SC and that's fine...

First off, scrap this crap...

Make implants cost 700 SC or 1000 certs each. (Unlock account wide with SC purchase)
Make them permanent.



Most of them hardly does anything, why the hell would I spend certs on something thats extremely situational and only lasts hours AND for one loadout even...

The EMP implant? You takin the piss?
Today was the first time I ever got hit by a EMP since the great nerf of it (and even before I only got hit by 1 or 2) and you know what? I didnt even run for cover... I just turned my HA shield on and shot the infil a couple of times in the head...

The only implant in this list that I would consider using is the regeneration, only so that I can stop relying solely on medkits (or the hapless idiots called medics).

Regardless of it being maybe OP/P2W/stupid, temporary implants leave a very sour taste in my mouth. Make it permanent, you could even buy it with SC like weapons but make you only be able to "cert" it out with certs and activate with infantry resources.

I must be the only one not bothered by the implants. While most of them offer a nice perk, I don't see any of them being an insurmountable hurdle for me to clear when facing off against an implanted foe. In a battle with 10s to 100s of other people, it will (assuming one implant slot) be impossible for them to cover the spectrum of things I can kill them with. Using the 'not on radar' implant? Maybe he has shot, or been shot by, someone with the auto spot implant? Or I'm using thermals. Or they'll eat a flash/emp grenade and suffer its full effects. Etc etc.

Until we get some time with these and are better able to examine their costs, I'm not about to jump to any outraged conclusions. The only thing that concerns me is the 'temporary' nature of them and the hassle it might amount to to manage them across multiple loadouts with unique timers on them.

Yup seems like they nerfed C4...again. Oh brother.

So, I invest 1500+ certs to max out recon darts only to have it countered by someone spending (cheap/expensive?) $/certs on an implant?!?!? You should design a game around countering an opponents skill/tactics by improving your own skill/tactics rather than introducing items that nerf the abilities of your opponent. One way is to add drawbacks for using the implants such as:

recon dart: "wearer automatically shows up on the minimap when within 15m of an enemy when implant is active."
anti-grenade implants: "wearer carries one less grenade while implant is active"
targeting implant: "if spotted by the enemy, the wearer is spotted 5 for seconds longer"

or something to this effect. The numbers in the drawbacks would vary, but you get the general idea.

It's also nice to see that there are two nerfs to Infil's in this update (recon darts and EMP implants). Are you deliberately putting salt in the wound to make the Infil update sound better when it comes out in 2014?

They said that those pistols are later, and these are just to fill out the current stock of pistol options for each empire.

So Auto-lasher-shotty pistol are later.

They're reducing the cert cost of ammo belts. I was wondering if they were going to return the certs or not. This is a good thing. you'll be able to re-buy your ammo belts at the new reduced costs and have the difference in certs left over. You're welcome.

EDIT: Crap. Maybe they won't be returning the certs. That would be more in line with their typical "player gets the shaft" mode of operation...