Check out the changes headed this way (new PTS notes)

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by DeadAlive99, Apr 18, 2017.

  1. Balake

    "I HAVE AN IDEA!! Lets make this game so slow its basically a turn based first person shooter" - DEVS.

    Developer chief- " GIVE THAT MAN A RISE!!"
  2. Towie

    Just wanted to point out that you forgot the Fury angle nerf !

    The changes are significant and far reaching, i'm imagining the balance updates will be coming thick and fast after introduction (at least I hope so - don't want Gatekeeper v1 for 6 months all over again...)
  3. Demigan

    So I read it and thought "ah, a very clear instruction on what these changes mean, both before and during the changelist, just so people won't misinterpret it"

    ...


    ...


    Ok let's take Rocketpods as an example, more specifically Breaker pods because I've already done the math on them, as most people seem to complain about that.

    Current damage per shot: 550
    Current MBT weapon-specific damage reduction: 20%
    Current side&top armor damage reduction: 58%

    550*0,8=440
    440*440=184.

    New damage according to the changelist: 167

    but, since top&side armor have now effectively become front-armor, we need to use the front armor values, at which point you find out that the current damage is 162,8. So basically rocketpods are basically buffed compared to other weapons!!

    This was the entire point of the beginning of the post: Most of the statistics don't change much, but it'll be easier to change for the developers and easier to understand by the players. No more players thinking a Phoenix deals less damage than a Decimator for instance.



    Q: What do these changes actually mean??

    A: Basically, vehicles will need a one or two more hits than previously to take down, depending on the weapon. But not because the damage on weapons is lower, most weapons in fact will deal the same damage as before but you actually see how much they deal in advance. It's the extra health that vehicles get that increases their TTK. At the same time it means it takes longer to repair them, meaning a longer downtime when repairing.

    Did you do the math? I don't think the Fury has been nerfed really if you calculate it. Hell, the use of a different damage modifier now, the damage might actually improve!

    In fact, the Fury on the Harasser has gained some extra damage to it's AOE, allowing it to better kill infantry.

    Because the Vanguard has had a higher damage resistance since forever. The higher healthpool reflects that higher damage resistance. I'm not sure without calculating it if the Vanguard is getting more health than he should, but on the other hand the Vanguard Shield is basically a resist shield now, which is a massive blow to the already struggling Vanguard.
  4. LodeTria


    The sunderer version got it's direct damage nerfed from 400 to 125.
    Against infantry, it is now 4 direct hits to kill up from 2. If you think this is somehow a buff you're out of your mind.

    Also most top-guns got shafted, the halberd most of all. Doesn't even 1hko infiltrators now and has the highest TTK out of all of the AV-top guns during AV. It can't even kill a flash in 1 hit anymore.

    Lightning HEAT can't kill non infiltrators with direct hits anymore as well.

    HE guns have similar DPS to AP now as well.

    This patch is all kinds of ******.
  5. Kristan

    I wouldn't freak out about infantry damage from vehicle weapons just yet. Maybe there are damage multiplayers we don't know about. I'd rather look for PTR reports or go to test server myself.
  6. LodeTria


    There are no damage multipliers when hitting infantry with any weapon. Infantry have 0% resistance to all things unless they have suit slots & 1 ability for it like FLAK armour, Nanoweave & heavy assault resist shield. The damage numbers you see are what you get for infantry.

    And yes, I do have PTS installed and went there to check this stuff myself.
    • Up x 1
  7. JobiWan

    I was referring to sundy fury in particular and against infantry it will be worse than useless. In fact I already ditched my dual fury battle bus from the last nerf and run two bas now.

    But Halberd OHK on infantry should remain, as above it's not easy to use against infantry and the skill should be rewarded.

    The whole thing just seems to be based on someone on the dev team dying too much to certain weapons so they've thrown their toys out of their pram.

    I guess we're wasting our time though because a) it's hard to say what it's like until we've actually tried it and b) it will be introduced regardless of player feedback.
    • Up x 2
  8. Daigons

    Look on the bright side. The resist shield is still a million times better than Magburn.
  9. stalkish

    Look on the bright side, Paint Stripper is still a million times better than Standard Emulsion.
  10. BartasRS

    Coz it looses its over the top resistances. Personally, I'm over the fence with those changes. At first I liked them, then I panicked but after a second thought I think it will be for the better. Tank cannons seem to recieve a nerf but resistances are being normalised so if a guy stat says it hits for 500 it will hit for 500 (front/side) so basically we are in similar spot we were before for most guns.


    Can't log on PTS now (nor in game) but IMO those changes will even the field for tank play leaving some ES flavour on top.
  11. Direlithe

    I welcome the changes, waiting to see how they apply to the game.

    I was hoping they'd rebalance things after giving a big fat advantage to infantry, because it mostly affected ground vehicles, and you already had to worry about ESFs slowly shooting your tank down from your blind spot, hornets, or being instagibbed by tankbusters and daltons.

    Here's hoping they address performance issues, bugs, glitches, netcode, etc., after all of this.
  12. Cyropaedia

    Rocket Pod direct damage from 500 to 143

    Hornet direct damage from 1500 to 500.

    Wow. Air Support game will die. RIP Vehicle game.
  13. Pikachu

    No you just have to stop shooting infantry. :)
    • Up x 2
  14. Cyropaedia

    It already takes like 10 Hornets to kill a Vanguard. Now it's gonna take 30+?! Are you kidding? :p
  15. WTSherman

    Hoo boy, that's a lot of changes. A loooot of changes. It'll take some time and a lot of math to sort through what it all means, but here's some quick first impressions:

    All MBTs will be more fragile than before. While there is a base HP increase and damage decrease on AT weapons to offset the loss of armor DR, the lost DR is generally larger than those other two factors. So on balance, MBTs will die a bit faster.

    This is compounded by the fact that as written, repairs have indirectly been nerfed into a smoking crater. See, armor DR indirectly multiplies the effect of incoming repairs. When that DR is on the order of 63%, ie Prowler/Mag Rider front armor, you're looking at an effective repair multiplier of about 2.7. MBTs are losing that entirely, because HP pool doesn't have the same multiplying effect.

    By type and facing, effective repair changes look like this:

    Prowler/Mag Front: 2.7->1, 63% less effective.

    Prowler/Mag/Lightning Side: 2.4->1, ~58% less effective

    Lightning Front/Vanguard Side: 2.85->1, 65% less effective

    Vanguard Front: 3.125->1, 68% less effective

    MBT Rear (all): 1.42->0.5, 65% less effective (double incoming damage can be treated as halved effective repairs)

    Sunderer: 1.8->1, 45% less effective

    Harasser: 1.64->1, 39% less effective

    As someone familiar with the armor values might have noticed, when zeroing out DR the change in effective repair strength is basically the same as the DR that was lost. Since most of the reductions in AT damage are around 50% or less with the exception of AP and HEAT rounds, on balance repairs will simply be less capable of powering through incoming damage than before.

    Harassers vs AP will get a particularly unique benefit, they're only losing 39% armor but AP damage is going down by 61/62/52% (Vanguard/Magrider/Prowler respectively). So Harassers will actually be significantly more durable against AP rounds. Sunderers, with their loss of 45% DR, will get a similar but smaller benefit. Also of note, of course, this loss of armor DR will hit the Vanguard harder than other tanks because the bonus HP is not going to replace the lost repair efficiency.

    Additionally, since it seems aircraft are not getting touched at all in either the resistance or HP category, every vehicle weapon in the entire game is effectively getting a massive nerf against aircraft.

    The Viper will be significantly stronger against most vehicles, since it is only losing 35% damage. So in just about every case, it gains more in the removal of DR than it loses in base damage. However, with only 250 splash damage it will be nearly useless against infantry. Especially if they have flak armor, since you'll need 8 hits out of its 6 round magazine to get a kill.

    Speaking of the Viper, the PPA is getting turned into a 20-round Viper cannon with no drop. It'll be 250 direct damage and 225 splash in 1m with drop-off to 4m, and light anti-vehicle(the Viper's damage type). While the splash and direct damage are switched (the Viper is 225 direct 250 splash), the difference is minimal: you're looking at a Viper with 20 rounds. That's just ridiculous.

    Meanwhile, Marauder is getting nerfed into the ground with a massive reduction in blast radius and damage. It's also getting changed to light AV, but at only 100 damage.

    The Canister is also getting nerfed from orbit for some unfathomable reason. Its pellet spread is getting increased from 0.9 to 2, which will give it about the same accuracy as the Mattock. A MAX weapon. Truly the Canguard will be the terror of 10x10 rooms everywhere, if it can ever manage to squeeze inside. Its damage is also getting slashed to 50, so a direct hit with every single pellet will only do 600 damage to infantry.

    Gatekeeper is going to be light AV with 125 damage, so it'll do about half the damage of the PPA and just barely more than the Marauder.

    Halberd is getting its damage reduced by 50%, so it'll be slightly more effective against tanks, slightly less effective against Sunderers and Harassers, and garbage against Infantry/Aircraft.

    Enforcer is getting a similar treatment to the Halberd, but with more drop. It is also losing its shotgun-style reload for a 4-second fixed reload, so now your Enforcer can take as long to reload as your main gun.

    Saron is only getting its damage reduced by 40%, so it'll gain relative to the Halberd/Enforcer and will even see a slight performance increase against Sunderers, but be slightly less effective against Harassers. However, the Harasser version is getting a larger cone of fire.

    The Mjolnir is having its damage reduced by 43%, so it'll gain relative to the Halberd/Enforcer, but not as much as the Saron. It'll also see a very small gain against Sunderers. It's also getting a lot of buffs to its splash damage for some reason, as they've apparently decided if they can't rein in the Vulcan/Aphelion against infantry, they might as well get the Mjolnir in on the anti-infantry party.

    The Aphelion is having its damage reduced by just 16%. It'll gain significant performance against all ground vehicles, and will now be the same damage type as the Vulcan/Tankbuster.

    The Vulcan numbers appear to have been badly typoed, so I won't be able to comment on those until they are corrected. "75 to 100" makes no sense when the weapon's current rate of fire is 800 RPM, and doesn't line up with the comment about RPM being "reduced", so the only reasonable assumption is that's some kind of error.

    The Fury is getting the same treatment as the Maraduer.

    The Bulldog is getting massively nuked from 1000 damage to 250. RIP Bulldog.

    And finally, the Vanguard shield. Oh, the Vanguard shield. It is now only effective on the front. It has also been changed to a resist shield, but its cooldown profile is the same. This means its protection mechanic and cooldown mechanic are now fundamentally at odds with each other: the protection mechanic will punish you for activating at low health, the cooldown mechanic will punish you for activating at high health. I've said this about "resist shield" proposals for a long time: if they really want to do that, they're going to have to make the cooldown more flexible so that players can actually use it at high health, when the resistance will actually do them some good.

    Overall: several TR nerfs, absolutely brutal NC nerfs, several VS buffs one of which is insane, and aircraft reign supreme with those proposed changes. Also they seem to have overlooked the Basilisk and Skyguard, which will be absolutely terrifying if they are allowed to go into that new armor-less world unchanged.

    Infantry and aircraft weapon changes will be a whole other can of worms, but seem to share a similar theme of getting stronger against ground vehicles, but weaker against other infantry/aircraft. Lock-on launchers in particular have been nuked from orbit with massive reductions to both damage and lock range. They're so dead that we'll need a broom and a vacuum to recover the remains.
    • Up x 1
  16. Kristan

    12 hornets.
  17. WTSherman

    Oh, one more thing: you can use my "repair efficiency" calculations backwards to determine how much more effective damage that vehicles will take from all sources. Which, in turn, you can use to determine whether your anti-vehicle weapon gains or loses effective damage on balance.

    Prowler/Mag Front: 2.7

    Prowler/Mag/Lightning Side: 2.4

    Lightning Front/Vanguard Side: 2.85

    Vanguard Front, Prowler/Mag w/Front/Side Upgrade: 3.125

    MBT Rear (all): 2.48 (because of the doubled rear damage)

    Sunderer: 1.8

    Harasser: 1.64

    Vanguard w/Front Upgrade: 3.7

    Vanguard w/Side Upgrade: 4

    So for example, the Halberd has its damaged reduced by 50%. To find out what that really means against the front of a Prowler, multiply it by the Prowler/Mag Front value of 2.7. 0.5x2.7=1.35, so the Halberd gains 35% effective damage against the front of a Prowler.

    Use the relevant upgrade value (for example, 4 for Vanguard with Side Armor upgrade) if you want to also factor in the removal of armor kits. So for example, a Vanguard that formerly had side armor getting hit by a Halberd: 0.5x4=2, so it'll take 2x the effective damage it would have before.
  18. REZistance

    I'm just curious as to why the EMP grenade is getting nerfed. I've never heard anyone complain about the specific functions they chose to nerf. In fact, draining infantry abilities is one of the main uses of the EMP grenade, why would you remove that?

    Even though I think losing your HUD looked cooler and was a more appropriate visual result of an electromagnetic blast, if you want to change it so the HUD stays up, no big deal. I don't think anyone is going to lose too much sleep over that one. Similarly, if you wanna make it so the EMP's don't work on the Sundie shield, that's fine, a touch more consequential than the HUD thing, but not the end of the world.

    But removing the ability drain aspect of the EMP's?? What the hell, that's way overboard. Why do that? That takes away one of the main, most valuable functions of the weapon. Please reconsider.
    • Up x 4
  19. Nody

    Now take your Magrider, drive up to less then 150m of an enemy tank which either out DPS you heavily (Prowler) or out tank you easily (Vanguard) and have a shoot out and enjoy the constant hits as you're well with in the auto hit range for mid body shots. Enjoy your new tank meta; the one factor Magrider had to rely on being able to engage at far range is now gone completely so enjoy suicide rushing in to try to hit them in the back (of course they can turn faster than you can and you're fighting with a front mounted fixed cannon).
  20. VeryCoolMiller

    happy for the nerf to i-win button, don't understand the buff to the magrider.

    Our line of 4 prowlers have been just vaporized by 4 magrider ... still thinking prowler is quite bad... we will see.