Balance Pass Post 2: Nanoweave and Related Features

Good question. My gut reaction is it will be the same as it was with max nanoweave + resist, assuming you start at full health with resist on.

This is anything but a shotgun nerf. I wouldn't be surprised if towers go back to being shotgun territory

I suppose it's too hard to make snipers a special class of weapon that ignores nanoweave. Yeah, better just turn infantry balance completely on its head than make an exception like that. So TTK becomes even lower with shotguns, ZOEs, MAXes in general.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

1. cert refund.
2. C4 (altho risk having the dmg reduced) now hurts infantries more with or without nanoweave.

How do you figure? Possible I'm misunderstanding the implications, but how will shotguns have a lower TTK now?

"Nanoweave will no longer resist headshots. Against any weapon."

Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!
Now it's more like counterstrike - one shot - one kill. Thats gonna be GOOD!

Man. That sold me even more than I was already sold.

Didn't know that was possible.

Price should never be the balancing factor anyway, all weapons for the same role should be sidegrades, a preference thing or better in one area, worse in another.

If the 250 cert option is the best then the failure is in balancing attributes, not in balancing the cost. The same issue is present for any weapon class where a 1000 cert option is a straight upgrade over a 250 cert one.

With too powerful low cost weapons, everyone will use them fast. With high cost overpowered weapons, those who pay get to use them first, but eventually everyone can get their hands on them anyway. The long term effect is just as bad for the game (although the cycle of 'sell op weapon, nerf, sell another op weapon' will eventually piss off the playerbase so the game dies). This game is meant to stick around for years to come so price becomes a nonissue for balancing purposes.

edit: If any weapon becomes practically redundant (same purpose, same performance), then it can only stay if it is visually exciting and different enough (or changed to perform in a different niche), although adding weapons for that sole purpose should be discouraged for performance reasons

Pellet headshots will own people even harder. Currently Nanoweave had the benefit of negating at least one pellet headshot. With the changes there is no mitigation so something like a single pellet HS for the pump (130x2) ends up taking off half your health. Before with 750 health that would mean roughly one third. With just one pellet HS, pumps are a guaranteed OHK. The others always have a followup shot, but there is the benefit of getting a lucky OHK with enough pellets on the head. The jackhammer excels at this precision and is going to be even better than it is now.

....

But OHK from Pump Actions or, even worse, OHK grenade spam from UBGL/AV Rocket launchers isn't just as irritating? Or stepping on a landmine that you didn't see going in to a building, maybe because it has been hidden around a blind corner, or maybe because it has sunk under ground?

All these latter options take little skill (shotgun aside), whereas someone taking a shot at 300m is at least moderately difficult, and actually very hard against a moving/zigzagging target. I foresee very few people dying to 2x sniper shots; ergo - byebye sniper.


Bottom line is that at no time ever (since Beta) has there been uproar at the number of bolt action snipers creating kill zones. If anything, they've all but disappeared already, to be replaced by ninjas with SMGs, because the BA are already fairly ineffective. I also think a range of 150m is far too close to LMG ranges to be considered "sniper". In summary this caters to the grunt caste again, and once again shortens the combat range of the game, rather than maximising its ability for size.

Just my 2p. A change in the wrong direction. People die a lot in this game; dying to snipers a lot just doesn't happen.

Nanoweave should able to stack with Resist Shield from the neck down, otherwise give us cert refund for Resist Shield, because other shields will have more synergy and usefulness.

Not a fan.

Be a better infiltrator. You're not better at a range exceeding 500 feet, you're just less likely to be reprimanded for playing poorly.

There is no valid argument where you're being more useful 500 feet away from the fight than not 500 feet away from the fight.

******** about TTK being too short
******** about Nanoweave giving a higher TTK
******** about OHK over 150 meters
******** about OHK under 150 meters

its all the same.

Devs, stop catering to the forumsider tears we obviously don't know what we want.
Make the changes and we will adapt.

The valid argument is that you prefer to engage targets outside of their effective range, that's the advantage of the slow firing, high power scoped long rifle. But perhaps the greatest argument is that there are plenty of other weapons, fired by infantry, that engage at ranges well beyond 150m.

Honestly, if I hadn't read this here, I would have thought it was a hoax. Its so absurd to reduce a snipers effective range to 150m, that I wouldn't have given the idea any credence what so ever if I hadn't' read it here on the official forums.

Let me just stop you right there. You say "PlanetSide 2 isn't a typical FPS game" That is true, and the point no? In traditional FPS play, a sniper is given hit scan projectile speed, with a near perfect or absolutely perfect cone of fire, that is to say the bullet goes exactly to the center of the screen. THAT is the reason the visual call outs like a vapor trail are introduced, the small map size is usually a limit of the map design and the sniping nearly an after thought to which the map is tweaked, this is why CoD and its brethren see so many "obvious" sniping locations and very few realistic ones.

Now don't get me wrong, as part of a large outfit on the Matherson server, i have heard my fair share of "omg one shot kill is op" rants, but lets be honest here, at less than 150 meters you are highly likely to be spotted either visually or by a passer by on the map unless you use a silencer, and even then you are at a significant spotting risk, and we all know from one end or the other that snipers are hunted brutally for their one shot kills despite having only limited true impact on the battlefield. At 150 meters+ the shot is so difficult even with the fastest bolt actions in the game that easily 60% or more of the player base is either incapable or unwilling to learn to snipe at this range.

So that in mind what are you really doing? To me it seems you are simply attempting to appease the ragers, who will simply go back to raging about tanks or something else.

Now I have been an officer in our infantry division for some time and in the 5 out of 7 nights we don't raid, and the time leading up to and after those nights, I usually snipe. I take great pride in both acts and in the time since this game's launch i have never once witnessed a sniper or even a group of snipers do anything but be a mild annoyance to my troopers, an annoyance that either one of them would handle or id grab my parallax and take down myself, or, more often, we would simply ignore. In fact we made a concerted effort to find the roll of the infiltrator in our operations (we have a separate division for strategic spec ops) and simply could not find a use for a dedicated infiltrator even with smgs, as such they have been relegated to s light recon and info support role.

In my time sniping I have regularly been accused of hacking and even raged at for simply using a one shot kill weapon despite my usual sniping distance being 200 meters or more. In fact i have a recording of a 400 meter kill at an uphill incline of at least 30 degrees that i am extreamly proud of. However in all of this the greatest thing I have managed to accomplish is the suppression of small areas of towers or doorways, all while heavily exposed and counter-able. This is suppression, not domination, and anything over 1/2 a squad easily begin to over run my ability to suppress effectively despite the time i took to obtain a valuable position (many of which are a one way trip) and the risk I am taking with each shot, for without fail if i hit but miss the head shot thus giving my position away, within then ext 10 minuets i will be being hunted, and likely dead.

I suppose if you wish to appease those who are incapable of accepting that one shot kills have always been and should always be an acceptable part of FPS play, regardless of the game, you should make the weapon have heavier drop or otherwise make the shot more difficult, not impossible at a given range, I had hope optimization would include eventual increased render distances and thus greater distances to challenge myself with.

Infils don't need nerfs, they need new options and objectives, the ability to wage information warfare and truly assist their team. If you want to address a sense of poor experience involving the infil give them an option against vehicles other than hiding or curling up and accepting their fate, some way to fight back no matter how pathetic.

Now one final statement. Anyone who thinks being sinped at is not an enjoyable experience is simply allowing themselves to get angry at the game because they "lost" being sniped at is exhilarating, an enemy in a hard to identify position has targeted you for death and you must outwit them and out maneuver them, sure this might not happen in large battles but in skirmishes this is how it feels, two warriors hunting each other in the battlefield, if you expose yourself for to long, you die, if you play smart and move close and careful, they die.

I encourage you, next time you find yourself being sniped at, instead of getting annoyed, take it as a challenge to a personal duel of the wits, and put your skills against theirs.

Because we should nerf players with the skill to make the shot rather than reward them....

I'll take not getting bonuses for headshots at extremely long ranges if it means that people aren't spending minutes wasting time 500 meters away trying to get headshots and accomplishing literally nothing. They aren't even interacting with the game in any meaningful way, and are just a dead weight on the server.

Even better this could add a visual mechanic that would warn snipers of the increased armor, this would cause snipers to shy away from even engaging these individuals and give the people who cant stand OHK snipers a way to nearly never have to interact with the mechanic if they hate it that much.

And? What's your point? You can do that at any range. Are you saying I can't do from 100-150m?

From the top to the bottom of the canyon is under 150m. It also doesn't stop from 2 shoting people being cover has they never really look for up.

Like I said and you choose to ignore, amusingly, you already have to 2 shot people with NW2. Are you having a shweet pleasure from killing lowbies? It's pretty sad if it's the case.

"True sniping" doesn't exist in a MP FPS. At least none right now. You can try to convince yourself that you are important because you kill a medic or an engineer but the sad truth is that you aren't because everybody can do it, and probably faster than you. The guy will also respawn just a few second later not too far away from where he died. That's if there isn't enough medic around to rez him because you won't kill 2-3 medics rezing each others with the last tier of medic tool.

Yes we know. People are stupid. News at 11.
If they weren't, I wouldn't be able to farm so well.

What's a "seasoned" sniper? A few kills make you "seasoned?" I am an experienced sniper. And you know what? Since I'm more often than not fighting NUC and ZAPs, (etc..) on Waterson, I know my HS won't kill except if I'm at very close range so why care about OHSK? I admit, at very close range with fairly large battle, I cannot guarantee a HS with my accuracy and lower FPS. Better to be safe. I prefer 2 easier hit to the center body or 1 round and a few easy pistol hits. I know they can't survive that.

Whatever you do, that you kill them or not, those group will know where you are.

Yes, the increase to 150m is important. It's a pretty massive buff against NW for me. It's a nerf at longer range against lowby, true. I personnally don't care a single second about range finder. If you want to play all sewious, go ahead.

I'll be on the battlefield killing people as fast as possible while moving around.

I'm going to repeat myself one more time. I'm also waiting on how they are going to balance sniper Tier. If the T1, T2, and the low power scope have 150m range and the T3 has like 180m range, I would be perfectly happy. If not, I'm going to be wondering what the hell is the point in the T3 sniper. If they balance the range even lower, I might not like it either.

They also haven't explain the case for infiltrator. Does the 150m range limit include infiltrator or does infiltrator with their 400 shield forsaken from resisting any HS?

totally agree.

i died from a OHK probably around once, maybe twice every hundred deaths. seriously, it's that rare.

why do we even bother nerfing it?

i died a LOT by being shot at multiple times with semi-auto sniper rifles, but one-hit-headshot-kill? come on, man.

when i do, then yes, i'd find the sniper and put some lead into his head.

it's not an issue. i wish dev can consider that and use the resource to do something else.


but the rest of the changes, im liking it.