Balance Pass Post 2: Nanoweave and Related Features

Not to mention the VS max being able to clear a whole room of extremely organized outfit mates. Do something about the ZOE Tank max before you start ******* with snipers and the like. Balance the BIG issues first dont make new ones you noobs

"Dying to a sniper that you never had a chance to see is a poor gameplay experience for everyone on the receiving end."

Should read: "Dying to a sniper...is a poor gameplay experience for everyone on the receiving end."

le me fighting infantry, when suddenly HEADSHOT INSTA DEATH.

I welcome sniper nerfs

I believe they removed damage scaling for the VS a while back because it was too good for us, as well as the no bullet drop thing for practically every VS weapon that isn't a semi-automatic sniper rifle.

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Could we please call a spade a spade.... not the devs are making these choices, all they do implement and sometimes have to post these changes.

It's nice to see an intelligent run and gun oriented player every once in a while. <3

It's sad to see yet another unintelligent run and gun oriented player.

You revel in the complete destruction of an entire gameplay style that will ultimately lead to a depletion of server population on a game that already has population problems. Furthermore, this update will combine with the optimization of the game and breed a truly overpowered concept that you have, thus far, not had to endure.

Prior to the optimization, most people suffer from extremely chaotic FPS rates. This made only the players with the best computers and highest frame rates capable of employing quickscope exploitation. Now, however, the frame rates of everyone are becoming better with the optimization of the game...meaning that you'll have more people learning how to properly quickscope. Furthermore, this potential update will increase the range and make quickscoping even more lucrative.

This is what you have to look forward to...in mass:





Welcome to the new Planetside 2,

A game filled with long ranged shotgun wielding infantry that can cloak after they kill you at medium to close range with a single shot. This update supports this, encourages this, and will force any Infiltrators who stay to learn how to best exploit quickscoping. When that happens, more will take up the bolt-action and learn this mechanic exploit.

You think that you're savoring the tears of dedicated long ranged snipers, well...you're going to drown in your own tears when this becomes the norm...and it will. It's far more lucrative an option to pick up a bolt-action sniper rifle and kill targets with a single bullet in a split second than it is to use the SMG.

Infiltrators who stay will quickscope, the rest will leave.

You'll have the server population drop AND your problems will be tripled.

Ultimately, they'll have to just scrap the Infiltrator entirely...because they are taking the long ranged sniping mechanic out of the game and making the ability to exploit quickscoping very lucrative. Quickscoping is overpowered, and so they'll have to nurf the various things that help it.

Sniper rifles will get nurfed at close range.
Cloak will get nurfed.

Ultimately, the Infiltrator will either be unplayable...or you'll all suffer instantaneous headshots from someone who appears out of nowhere running and gunning with his bolt-action rifles.

The development team doesn't have a single true sniper on their development team, this is blatantly obvious. They have no idea what balances out sniping mechanics, and they have absolutely no idea what they are actually pushing sniping into... They are breeding something that will cause more hate than anything this game has ever faced before...

Run and gun long ranged shotguns with cloak.

While I think all the OHK mechanics in the game are dumb and bad, I'm kinda OK with that. All those other players had a chance to fight against that sniper. Also he is with his team, maybe even supporting them with darts, spotting, captures.

You have less of a chance than you think, especially when quickscoping becomes more effective through greater optimization of the game. For someone with a good FPS rate, all they have to do is unstealth, click, and you're dead as they're cloaked once again while re-chambering a round.

It's bad enough in most other games, and that's without cloak.

With that said, I've detailed the role Infiltrators play as a long ranged sniper in the thread listed here. Even if you do not see what a long ranged sniper is doing for your team, that doesn't mean they aren't actually helping you out in some pretty significant ways. A CQC Infiltrator with an SMG or exploiting the quickscoping mechanic might be with you in the fray...but they're not going to be capable of taking out more high priority targets.

A long ranged sniper can cover the entire battlefield with a single sway of their scope if they have taken up an adequate location. This means that they can do the following for your faction:

Ensure that base turrets are never repaired by taking out every Enginier trying to do so.
Take out Heavy Assults within various locations who stop to rocket a tank.
Take out Medics.
So on and so forth.

An Infiltrator in the fray can do this within their limited field of view, and more often than not...they really can't afford to be so picky with their targets. A long ranged sniper can do this on a very macro scale...scanning an entire base and picking the best targets to take out in benefit of his faction.

That's a very shoddy explanation in comparison to the thread I've written on the subject.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/long-range-sniping.157527/

Essentially,

Long range snipers have a role that benifits their entire faction as much as your SMG weilding Infiltrator who runs into the fray alongside his faction. The only true difference is that you don't see what the long ranged snipers are doing because they aren't right there alongside you...but they're taking out high priority targets that would, otherwise, impede the progression towards securing the location.

They can do this better than anyone else because they have a larger view of the entire battlefield. While other classes have to run from one side to the other, a long ranged sniper just sways his scope. We play a game of perpetual whack a mole, basically.

Let's hope so!

I guess everyone will be running around on flak armour now anyway though.

Question for SOE though - can you not just increase overall health on every class a slight amount while you're at it? I think most would prefer a slightly longer TTK in general.

I guess I should have put more emphasis on this part: "While I think all the OHK mechanics in the game are dumb and bad". I don't necessarily condone the quickscoping OHK, but all the other crappy OHK methods make it a wash anyways. I (as in the one guy getting shot) might not have a chance, but hopefully my teammates will (IF they have at least a modicum of awareness).

About the utility of especially long range snipers - the effective ones are far and few in between, judging from all the BR10 hill humpers firing blindly away. They are better off being forced closer to the action. Though it sucks for the 5 effective ones per server, I guess.
That topic has been discussed to death though.

I've accidentally quick-scoped targets that caught me off guard, such as an Infiltrator with an SMG uncloaking several feet infront of me. If I actually had the FPS to perfect this and do so on a whim, I really think that your theory about your allies having a chance to avenge you wouldn't be as accurate as you think.

It only takes a split second and your dead, and I can be stealthed and re-chambering a round.

With that said, the reason you don't see too many good long ranged snipers is because Nanoweave negates the one hit kill headshot at long range...and the frame rate for most people tanks at very chaotic times. I'll have times where I'll suddenly have scope lag, and my targets will be jumping across the screen.

This is why you see those snipers firing away blindly, it's frustrating when your FPS tank and you're left shooting madly in a desperate attempt to land that kill you should have made. This, however, would change if we could remove the nanoweave problem upon optimization. You'd have far more long ranged snipers actually being able to perfect their shot.

Yeah, maybe. Part of it is the ever-present latency. It's very noticeable with SMG Infils and sneaky LAs with high-RoF weapons or shotties. Gotta keep on your toes when you hear them!
That said, I've played around a bit with the CQC-specialized sniper rifles and found them to be a fun and challenging playstyle (and used slug shotties a lot), so I'm probably biased a bit in favor of the changes.

Sadly, my primary playing style is long distance sniping and the only reason I even purchased the SMG was due to the current chaotic fps and nanoweave issue. I intended to wait it out and ultimately return to what I actually enjoy...now, it looks like it simply won't exist.

I've always loathed CQC, I don't have great twitch based mechanics.

The only time I actually enjoy CQC are knife fights.

Allow me to copypaste a previous post of mine with some possible additions to it:

In the game as a whole, hell in any game. I would find it to be much more enjoyable to have options rather than taken away.

Some people find snipers and infiltrators useless and ineffective. They're entitled to their opinion.
Some may find the CQC grunts to be simpleminded. They're also entitled to their opinion.

But instead of taking things away and making restrictions after restrictions everytime something is considered overpowered or any kind of issue occurs really, make something that counters it.

Give people their nanoweave, even with head protection. If they invest the points they have into added protection for their character they should get it. At the loss of another potential advantage that could help them in other situations, choices.


And then give us our snipers. We chose a weapon with superiority in range at the cost of inferior rate of fire and viability in CQC, aswell as being a class that already has lower protection.
Despite this I personally still invest in more ammo rather than nanoweave when sniping, because that's what fits my situation at that moment. Of course a lot of the troops in the fray will have the increased armor.

A note to snipers, stop trying to shoot heavies unless it's a sure kill (you see him taking cover from being shot at/capturing a point all alone with no friendlies around.) And if it's a medic or engineer running around with nanoweave you may revel in the fact that he's given up another advantage that could've otherwise improved his ability to support his team. And then take him out with that bloody second shot.

And if nanoweave then becomes too much of a problem, consider whether or not it's unbalanced compared to the rest of the game as a whole. If it isn't, then add a choice that contests it, forcing players to prioritise what they'd really want. The added armor? Or more utility?

And a note for assault units, if you're under sniper fire and you know where it's coming from, a bit of suppressive fire will force a sniper to recloak and reposition. And it's not necessarily your job to take out the sniper, he's far far away and has the superiority of range on you. Instead report it to your team and work together, have one of your snipers keep an eye out with the hills the shots came from. I seem to recall some individuals in another thread enforcing that snipers should take part in teamwork, so include them.

The unfortunate truth is we are often useless as snipers, we may get a kickass headshot killstreak on occasion but the total XP gain compared to anyone in the midst of battle is slim. A snipers primary support comes in form of information and supportive firepower that reaches beyond enemy cover...


I don't play a sniper for the killstreaks, I play a sniper because I like sniping, and wish to entertain myself when playing a game.

Didn't you said you were done? Oh you bad liar.

Your "community" is of 12 persons that have yet to see the actual balance pass but decide to like your post? Impressive community you have there! I had hope there was a few more people than that still playing PS2...

You are just plain stupid now. I haven't lost anything. How could I lose anything since those patch idea are a plain buff to Sniper? If they increase it because of whining, even better!

As by the change not favored by the community, which one are you talking about? Looking at this thread, a fairly large amount are against this NW heavy nerf against sniper. The "sniper" community is also so insignificant that it might as well be ignore as it is, for good and really bad reasons, the most hated infantry group in pretty much every single game.

I doubt I could have **** on my nose considering I believe the balance Dev team to be almost completly impotent at game balancing.

But I guess an actual user of bolt action weaponry with over 18k kills, unlike you, that agree with the limitation of one shot capability over long range, to PS2 standard, mean I'm a bootlicker.

Whatever float you boat. I'm still going to enjoy this straight up buff for the most important gameplay section of the game which is way under 150m in range.

Continue your crying please because, once again, I whatever happen, ingame, I get buff up.

I win on every single term here.

Like you said in a previous post, there are lots of derp players. More power to them if they prefer to take an inferior choice. Who am I to stop them?

But games shouldn't be balance around derp level which it is right now.

VR NPCs don't have NW but let's say that as an "experience" infiltrator like yourself, you are stupid enough to not have NW5.

-200 damages LMG, Gauss Saw only, does 167 damage at 85m.
-167 damage LMG like the EM6, does 143 damage at 75m.
-143 damage LMG like the EM1, does 125 damage at 65m.

Which mean to kill an 900 EH infiltrator, it take 6, 7 and 8 bullet to kill over 85m with LMG.

You don't even know how other weapon perform ffs. How can you even justify your opinion on weapon balance? G T F O.

Once again, too dumb to comprehend. It's alright.
Why would I come up with "good idea" when the actual dev balance idea ain't even fully detail? That's stupid.
Why would I come up with "good idea" when I actually believe there should be a range limit where Bolt action couldn't one shot?

I also don't think sniper are useless. I believe the mentality of Longe range sniping in a arcade FPS with quick respawn is pretty useless. Those are very different. This isn't a sim. If you can't kill people faster than they can respawn, you are pretty useless even though you make a few amazing HS.

Since you are the kind that believe sniper can't work under 150m, yes, I consider you to be entirely useless. Maybe I do sound elitism but unlike you, I know what I'm talking about.

Why would I bring flinch when you don't even know how many bullet any LMG takes to kill you at range? Ignorant as you are, there wouldn't be any point in doing so.

Wasn't it a 50% increase to the player's total health pool?!?!?!

Uh... no.

25% to the health bar. Translates into roughly 125 hit-points, or one bullet from an NS-7 PDW.

TL;DR but I lold at the text wall.

So they fixed the 250 hit-points increase it gave? Last thing I read about it was in this thread https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...bugged-and-giving-double-health-bonus.124613/ which said it's +250 hp?

I don't even snipe, but I kind of feel that dropping their effective kill range that much is overkill. You might as well dump a truck of nerf-bats on Infiltrators now.
150 meters is actually not that far in terms of gameplay.

As far as nano-weave goes, I do like that change. It is a bit strong at the moment, so it needed some change.