PTS Update - 04/18

What does the bolded part mean, exactly? What's the "more play around it" that "critical state" is picking up?

this is some complete overhaul , i have absolutely no idea what all that stuff really mean and how it will end but PLEASE at least make the striker and phenix decent, thanks

Brief summary for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/66dxlw/please_wait_96_hours_before_panicking_about_the/

So you killed launchers apart from the NC Phoenix which is increased and increased health to MBT but give the Vanguard the greatest health against the less powerful launchers. You have just given the NC the greatest advantage of all time in zerging, its so stupid that i cannot even think you posted this........

The fact that they sat there and decided to give yet ANOTHER buff to Mag is just so pants on head ********. Prowlers really need help especially since their secondary guns are just garbage when in comparison to every other. Gatekeeper stats are worse than basks and the vulcan is a close range weapon that should never be on something made to figth at artillery ranges. So Mags can reload the fastest AND dodge sideways making prowlers even worse at hitting targets consecutively. Now I could understand if Prowlers could obliterate things almost instantly but thats not the case. They need multiple shots ON TOP of a maxed out Lockdown. In order to have prowlers be on their best, drivers are forced into lockdown play, and forced to spend tons of certs. Meanwhile first rank of vanguard's shield gives the maximum hp and the later ranks only reduce CD. Magriders now have an increased dps with great all rounder secondary guns that do better in medium and long range capacities and can also just dodge to the side and also have the ability to re position into places that no other tank can get to (They also can get turbo if im not mistaken). Then...you nerf Vulcs to basically be even worse because you cant just buff the one that is doing ****tier than the rest. Nope, gotta drag them down to the **** levels as well...IF i read that right. The gatekeeper buff might be ok but honestly I am predicting another terrible ****-keeper that TR will have to be stuck with.

I believe you just really decided to nerf AOE damage across the board. Hell most of the grenade launchers are now terrible and no one uses them due to how nerfed they are and after this PTS they will be even worse. Hell they even nerfed pounders out of all things when there were many other max weapons that could of use it.

Look I know you guys are trying to help but this Nerfside update is just...please ask a third party to do your balancing from now on and stick to making more reskinned guns and base modules. One of the main issues with tanks and other craft in this game is that they dont have enough answers. Hell another striker nerf when it needed a buff is just sad. When people just spam tanks infantry have very little in the way of even making a dent especially when they are at a base where they can easily run up and dominate the tank terminals. Planes above an ESF have far too much armor and anti air practically tickles them. Ranger can do well but its so ****** outside of close range that no one runs it for a reason. Walkers are good but against anything with a bit of armor they take so much time to kill that chances are the liberator or galaxy can turn around and blow you up before you even get them to half health.

Tank spam is one of the massive issues and you made a patch to basically say "hey, we gave tanks a buff and told everyone else to screw themselves that needed anything with answers. Tanks dont need survivability, they need balance and you kinda went the other direction.

Vehicles, anti AV mine armor, sweeper implant, AV mines:
The sweeper implant (allows infantry to detect mines) should either not at all or only at a reduced range work inside vehicles (maybe detection range should be dependant on vehicle type). Using AV mines already requires to get to a position where the enemy will be, use the mines and get away unnoticed. Even then the AV mines are blatantly thrown on the ground because there's no dig in mechanic, so they can by spotted. To promote AV mine armor a bit more it could either receive the sweeper implant's capability of detecting AV mines or increase the range at which the sweeper works within the vehicle, synergizing with the implant.
Also I think it's time to enable engineers to dig in those AV mines. Left-click = regular throw on the ground AV mines, right-click = kneel + dig in animation and places permanently invisible AV mine when done with it on the ground (detectable by sweeper infantry or vehicle AV mine armor upgrade). For engineers it'd be nice if right-click on the repair tool would be used to remove AV mines to stop the repair tool from targeting the vehicle those mines are under instead and to counter untargetable AV mines that way.

Question: Does the increase in vehicle health mean longer repair times ?

Stationary hovering aircraft that act as squad spawners: Auto pilot ? Or at least something for the pilot to do to not be bored to death, like reloading spawn pods at least (hitting reload button) ?

Lock-on launchers: Still an issue with them not being able to target aircraft while they can already damage the infantry trying to target them => seperate range vs vehicles (lower range) and aircraft (higher range) ?

ESFs: Please remove the area damage on anti infantry weapons and have those have actual bullet spread instead and fast fire rates. Anti infantry weapons shouldn't be area spam weapons but designed like the Kobalt because otherwise designs like the Kobalt aren't competitive with their single target damage.
Please grant all ESFs flares, additionally to the currently available ones, but as standard and always integrated option (move them to a weapon slot for usage and have them have limited ammo). Design them in such a way that using them doesn't just drop a lock-on but forces the ESF to leave the flare area to cause the lock-on to pick the flare instead of the ESF.
Engines switching from hover to fly mode don't cause any movement or speed bonus resulting from using the turbo until either engine mode is active (bug -> fix pls -> either disalbe turbo or let it have an effect or even better: allow the pilot to toggle between hover and fly mode engines).

Vehicles & Aircraft: Ever thought of making vehicles that lack certain equip slots (no extra armor / no better engines...) and certain upgrade slots (less total ammo, no zoom...) cost less nanites ("not equipping this saves you X nanites") ? Mainly meant for newbs who can then pull vehicles and aircraft more often but also an option for people who think they can benefit from the risk & reward of this.

Infantry: Please make them stop being 90° cliff runners, excluding light assault. Let them have a limited turn speed and an acceleration as well as a brake movement mechanic instead of 0% to 100% speed or the other way around from just a button press. Maybe even lower or increase their movespeed (within minimum and maximum value boundaries) depending whether they're moving up- or downhill. Also no more unlimited sprinting would be nice unless the adrenalin upgrade is part of the currently used equip. Aside from biolabs I believe all infantry should always gain a very minor selfheal that works even while stealthed as biological heal.

Infiltrator:
I think it would benefit the class to split it up between infiltrator (mid to close range) and sniper (mid to long range) and grant those 2 more specific roles:
Infiltrator would be limited to pistol / knife /

Base design:
Base design should be made more interesting than just 1) spawn here, 2) there are your cap points and 3) there are your terminals.
I want to be able to decide whether I fortify a base or move out to attack the enemy base.
I don't like that most of the AMP station's turrets are passive and useless most of the time and there's nothing that can be done about that, so how about being capable of installing a number of (total amount limited per player) AI modules within them to make them auto-target and return fire ? I'd like to be able to create ammo dispensers, teleport beacons, health stations, additional doors, additional shields, new paths with shields to walk on, anti infantry auto turrets on the roof inside a structure at a fixed point, create alarm signals if infantry trips over or steps onto a thing I installed etc. ...and all of that should be usable and manipulateable by any enemy infantry class (aside from auto turrets which just shoot what's in range).
C4 should be usable within bases more to quickly disable shield walls by jump-jetting over a gate with one and destroying the gate module on the inner side with C4, breach walls, destroy bridges, dispose of defensive turrets (even with just 1x C4) etc. but it shouldn't be the wonder item to get rid of vehicles as it is currently.
Also I'd like to see structures have an actual function / purpose / usage instead of just being there.

AV mines:
AV mines should deal far less damage when detonating, except if it's because a vehicle comes too close. The reason for this is that they're currently abused as cheap, stackable nuke options vs anything with a lot of HP. Important: If a detonating AV mines causes subsequent AV mine detonations it must be checked due to what reason the initial AV mine that caused this detonated. If it was because a vehicle came too close all those other mines need to deal full damage, otherwise just the reduced amount.

Minimap:
I'd like to have an icon on the minimap for base def turrets (always just in gray color), displaying the kind of tower and which initital (not current) direction it's facing. I'd like to receive arrow-lines for teleporters and jump pads on the minimap, connecting their point A and point B, clearly indicating from where to where it goes: A ->->-> middle <-<-<- B.

Hover beams (such that automatically lift you up or drag you down):
I'd like to be able to use the crouch button to go down and the jump button to go up inside these instead of them forcing my up or down direction. Light assault shouldn't use (and waste) the jetpack while inside the beam but immediately when leaving it and even if the button was pressed while inside the beam.

Buff bar:
I'd like to have a small buff bar, indicating how long my fall immunity still lasts from using anything that grants fall immunity instead of having to guess.

Enemies in loading screen and unkillable standing near a Sunderer:
Invulnerable soldiers shouldn't stand next to a Sunderer. Either wait with creating the 3d model unti the guy has his loading screen finished, give me an indicator he's damage immune or make him receive the damage either now or later - but preferably the indicator for damage immunity.

Binoculars:
I'd like to get binoculars for every soldier as generic gear, going to one of the many spare weapon slots.
Zoom: 4x, 8x, 12x, toogleable with fire mode.
Night vision (off initially), toggleable by using the binocular's weapon slot button again while they're selected.
-> maybe have this tool as generic soldier passive, upgradeable with certs for +zoom and +night vision.

Seperate Infiltrator in 2 classes: Infiltrator & Sniper.
New Infiltrator:
-can hack stuff
-can use a 1x decoy grenade (holo) and 2x decoy grenade (noise) as part of his generic gear (doesn't cost nanites to refil but requires an infantry terminal); both grenades are usable from a weapon slot in addition to a picked grenade (usually EMP)
-> holo grenade: creates holo images of 3-5 random classes of a single random enemy faction attacking whatever is in range of the impact point, not taking any damage from any weapon (but displaying hit effects and hit indicators to the enemies); can get rid off using an EMP on them or waiting until they vanish (8s); enemies being attacked by holo images will have their shield and health bar faked as if they were actually hit until the effect ends (at which points the bars display the actual shield & health values), eventually resulting in them retreating or using stim packs for no actual reason
-> noise grenade: Will cause random shooting, explosion and cloak sounds at impact point and any infantry within a 20m radius of impact will receive random noises of that kind in varying directions and distances for the next 8s.
-receives +25% bonus movespeed while using a melee weapon, stacking with adrenalin gear
-receives +1/2 extra pistol mag ammo as passive cert option
-can walk and jump without being detected by sensor darts, motion spotter or infantry radars but detected while running
-uses a variant of stalker cloak that drains fastest while running, drains additional amounts when jumping, falling, using levitation or jump pads but drains slower while walking and even slower while crouch-moving and refills as usual when either off or not moving with off being the fastest refill option
-can use either chameleon armor (no hit indicators for enemies while shooting at him in stealth and no visible effects aside from the shield shatter, 5% bullet protection), nanofoam plates (8% bullet protection, melee damage taken reduced by 25%), adrenalin (also heals 1% HP per second and otherwise designed as currently), grenade bandolier (just extra grenades, including the decoy ones) or shield capacitor armor (same bonus as currently but with +50 extra shield on top of it)
-can also use a sabotage tool to sabotage turrets instead of hacking them
-> sabotaged turrets will turn slower, have their rate of fire reduced, overheat faster, jam every 2nd shot (jam delay depending on type of turret) and be generally more inaccurate
-can mark enemy vehicles for up to 30s/60s/90s/120s (GPS sensor cert upgrade) by applying a GPS sensor to them, causing this one to be visible to allies for the duration unless stealth armor is equipped in which case the sensor periodically takes damage from it, fading before reaching maximum time; this is a visible blink-icon on the vehicle that can be shot to be removed, takes damage from explosions and can also be removed with an EMP; limited to only one per vehicle (if possible so)
-can still use sensor darts but no more motion spotter
-can still use mines
-still has -100 HP penality as current design infil
-can drop from 20% higher points before fall damage starts and fall damage taken is 20% reduced

New Sniper:
-can use either sensor darts or motion spotter but their range and lifetime is reduced to half; also the motion spotter gains an area indicator showing allies on the map how large the covered circle is
-can still use mines
-only class capable of spotting enemies without being hearable by enemies that way
-hearable more than other classes while running if the rifle is the currently selected weapon
-now has personal spawn beacon that works just like a squad spawn beacon but allows only the sniper who placed it to spawn there, forcing the enemy to not just kill the sniper (as he can respawn) but to get there and get rid of the spawn beacon
-is always 60% transparent (except towards allies) but completely loses his stealth
-still glows when darklight is pointed on him
-has a movespeed penality of 15% compared to other classes while running
-still has -100 HP penality as current design infil
-passive cert: +1/2/3/4 extra sniper rifle mags and +1/1/2/2 pistol mags
-passive cert: if spotted by an enemy will drop being spotted 15/30/45/60% faster than any other class
-can't hack anything anymore
-can't use EMP grenades anymore
-sniper rifle redesign: instead of being inaccurate at close range their damage is reduced at close range, increasing until a minimum distance to the target is reached and dropping again at and after a certain maximum distance -> want to avoid snipers running around corners oneshot / knife combo; that's not what they're meant to do and actually that wouldn't be possible to do with a long rifle
-can now lay on the ground to increase transparency from 60% to 80%, greatly reduce scope sway and increase bullet travel speed by +25% but it takes ~3s to deploy and undeploy from that position before being able to move and when being shot at while chances of being hit overall are smaller chances for them being headshots are increased; laying on the ground requires a somewhat even terrain with enough space
-now has access to gear allowing him to climb high places for reaching the best sniping positions: can walk up to 90° angles without sliding and falling; running straight towards such a surface makes him go up instad, walking against one with his back makes him go down; can use a 60m range, 3s projectile lifetime, 12s recharge time, unlimited ammo teleport dart that, if landing on even ground with enough space to all sides, teleports him onto the dart's position (+teleport effect)

Could dead bodies please no longer block line of sight of anything and also not be an infinite bullet sponge while they exist but just be ignored by any projectile instead (also no longer blocking motion spotter etc. placement) ?

Medic heal tool should use left-button to heal injured as well as dead targets, bringing them back once at 100% health and right-button to ignore all line of sight blocking allies and lock onto the target with the lowest health in the focus direction because currently it's almost impossible to target the lowest health ally if there are so many other allies blocking line of action.

Class design shouldn't always be one pattern, like currently, where heavy assault just and only receives shields, but allow teamplay and specialization alike. Teamplay @heavy: Fire control armor that grants allies around the heavy, while active, a rate of fire bonus (depending on armor upgrade rank) for attacking targets (also increasing RPG reload speed). Specialization @heavy: Stabilizer armor: Reduces maximum cone of fire a weapon receives by up to 50% (depending on upgrade rank), increases main weapon reload speed (depending on upgrade rank) and reduces weapon kickback for both initial and permanent fire (depending on upgrade rank) -> shotgun / LMG specialization while losing armor in return.

Engineer anti infantry turret should imo attack much faster or deal more damage because of it's size and because it's stationary, can be disabled, destroyed and overheat -> already enough downsides.
All player placed objects should be usable uphill as well and not just downhill on the same steep terrain level.

Light assault's generic jetpack shouldn't be so disappointing: It takes far too long to recharge, lasts too short and the thrust when using it is pretty pathetic. The icarus should come with built-in fall damage softener, increasing the distance until fall damage sets in and reducing fall damage taken while also be a little bit more controlable direction-wise because straight up rarely does the job.
All jetpacks should, if fully drained, not just stop regenerating fuel but do so constantly, even if completely drained, or only take 0.1s or something until the recharge mechanic starts again. It makes no sense otherwise and is just a stupid, clunky mechanic.

About AP being weaker: If you want them as long range options how about increasing their current damage by some bonus value the higher the distance towards the target is up to a capped maximum so that at high distances it does out-dps the other projectiles while also benefiting from the velocity bonus while at not-so-high distances it does not ?

see how everyone is calling it a buff to everything they hate? That's because very few here know what they're talking about.

Maybe some of you should download test...

Only reason Minor stealth implant doesn't seem that "bad" is because the majority of the player base hasn't been lucky enough to roll the 0.005% RNG or spent 10k's certs chasing it. Also minor stealth is receiving a 2 second 25% reduction in cloak time.

Fracture

• Damage from 210 to 125
• Magazine size from 10 to 8

So i better use my archer then with 300 damage,

Phoenix gets a buff in ammo, damage, reload.. its already a pain in *** launcher, unique that you can hide and use it, idea for hackers and you buff it, Great Job !! In fact its the ONLY launcher to get a buff, which NC designer thought of this...

Striker, a pile of poo at best gets nerfed LOL

Less damage, like it needed it. Life span down to 5 seconds, wow..

This is the worst potential update i have ever seen in ANY game, bring this out and im done.. i would not waste another minute on this, and nerfing the emp grenade, its never been an issue...... comical

why would i use a vehicle, they are now pointless.

Worst Ideas ever, since 3 years the devs have stupid ideas but this is a new Level.

Please Change the Company do something else but dont develop planetside 2.

I will never pay for this crap. I wish I had never spent so much money on it.

I like the changes of what's actually changed. EXCEPT HESH is too ***** viable. It's gonna become a cancer spam of HESH. Also fix the Dalton (1hk ESF), Halberd and Harasser damage against tanks feels too low even with it's increased survivability

Why the hell did you ignore the Archer?
That weapon is an aspect of the infantry/armor interaction, so it should at least be mentioned when it comes to the topic with such a long post.

Currently, it's only good for shooting MAX units. Which, as you may recall, have become very rare.
It's bad against infantry and hilariously bad against even light vehicles. And it fills the primary weapon slot, meaning that you are basically defenseless if you go with the Archer.
How about putting it into the Tool slot instead? It's less situational than the turrets or the barrier and still far less of an advantage than the Heavy's missiles or the LA's rocklets.


Other than that, it looks like this could end up being interesting. I'm especially keen on the stronger Phoenix.
Hopefully you'll change the Vanguard's shield effect to properly display the directional nature of the new shield.

Edit:
I'd also like a statement on ESF infantry farming. Specifically, how about giving ESFs a distinct sound that can be heard over the ambient sounds of combat?
I'd like to know that there's a sky shark with a missile launcher behind me before I die from something that I couldn't have anticipated. At least sniper and the like are a given, but ESFs tend to crop up randomly and murder people, without a way of retaliation.
Harassers do almost the same, but they are ground bound and can be hunted down and tracked by the sound that they make.

Keep in mind that the Phoenix is losing its 167% damage multiplier. I think that might be enough to offset a 16% increase in base damage. It's effectively going from 2002 damage to 875, giving it a conversion factor of 0.44. This means it will do less damage against Sunderers and Harassers. Its damage will go up very slightly against tanks, around 5%-15% depending on which side you hit.

The Striker also will only be losing damage against infantry and Harassers. Going from 210 to 125 gives it a conversion factor of 0.59. Against Prowlers/Magriders, its damage will increase by 59% on the front, 42% on the sides, and 46% on the rear.

Against Lightnings, you're looking at 46% more damage on the front, 42% more on the sides, 46% more on the rear.

Against Vanguards, the Striker's damage will increase by 84% on the front, 46% on the sides, and 46% on the rear.

Against Sunderers, the Striker's damage will increase by 6%.

A couple of big problems do stand out though. Most of the infantry damage numbers aren't going to make sense anymore unless they reduce total infantry health to 500 or something like that. Also, they seem to have overlooked the entire HMG category: Basilisks, Walkers, Skyguards, Gorgons, and of course the Archer are untouched for some reason. Which means all of those, at the moment, are getting a HUGE increase in effective vehicle damage thanks to the removal of armor.

Where do you get that from? Did i miss it?

how do you work out the rest, that less is more?

Unfortunately, this game has a looooooot of mechanics that are not documented in-game at all. In this case, here is how vehicle armor and damage resistance works: http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance

It is... "slightly" out of date, but it's all we've got and most of the numbers are accurate because they have not been touched in ages. The Phoenix, for example, is accurate. It got one change about two weeks after it was launched, and hasn't been touched since.

The armor values at the top are also accurate, because they have not been touched in years. The way it works is first you apply the armor, as a %DR. So 63 armor reduces all incoming damage by 63%, 0 would be no change, negative values would increase damage instead. You then apply the weapon-specific resistance the same way. So, the -167 on the Phoenix? That's 167% extra damage.

This is the system they're trying to simplify. Even though I disagree with 90% of this patch, the one thing I do agree on is that the resistance system does desperately need to be made more transparent so that people can know what their weapons really do.

Now, they're removing armor completely on the PTS. So instead of taking 63% less damage from everything, the tank will now take the full listed damage. So, 2.7x more damage from all sources. Resistances are still a thing, and... oh, I just noticed that the Striker is also getting changed from Light AV type to Rocket Launcher type, by which I assume they mean Dumbfire Rocket Launcher because lock-ons were "Medium Anti-Vehicle" before. So the new Striker actually does more damage than I thought. Tanks have a 20% resistance to Light AV, but -50% to Rocket Launcher.

Anyway, with that new information I'll use the Striker as an example. Also, the notes actually say it's changing to 150, not 125, so we'll fix that too. So the numbers here will be different from the previous post, because I didn't notice the resistance change the first time.

Now, we're going to some damage math. I'll go ahead and do it the long way so you can see everything that's going on, though there is also a much faster way to get to "how much more damage".

Let's do the front of a Magrider:

Old damage: 200
Armor: 63% DR means 37% damage. 200*0.37=74
Resistance: Light AV, 20% DR means 80% damage. 74*0.8=59 damage.
Real Old Damage: 59

New Damage: 150
Armor: 0 DR means 100% damage 150*1=150
Resistance: Rocket Launcher, -50% DR means 150% damage, 150*1.5=225
Real New Damage: 225

Change in damage (new/old): 225/59=3.81

End result: Striker damage increased by 281%

The fast way to get to this result:
150/200=0.75 (damage change)
0.75/0.37=2.027 (armor change)
2.027*1.5/0.8 = 3.81 (resistance change)

As you can see, the results of the two methods are the same.

Edit: One other thing I noticed though is they referred to lock-on launchers as previously being light AV (20% resistance) when they were previously medium AV (-50% resistance, same as Rocket Launcher).

If they made the same mistake with the Striker, then its resistance value isn't actually changing as far as an MBT is concerned, it's still -50%.

If that is the case then the difference is 2.027 or ~103% (simply skip the resistance change).

First, thank you for explaining this in detail, i was aware to a point that the damage is never true, but unaware to the extent of what it was.

Now im not sure how you get 1.5 on this?

New Damage: 150
Armor: 0 DR means 100% damage 150*1=150
Resistance: Rocket Launcher, -50% DR means 150% damage, 150*1.5=225
Real New Damage: 225

Awesome, that's a whole lot of changes.. If nothing more than to shake people out of their same'ol routines.. I like it. I'm sure i'll be annoyed when what I'm used to no longer works like I expect it to.. but I'll get over it.

Although, I don't think I'll ever play a Falcon Max again.. those rockets have always been slow, lumbering, non-damage causing North Korean excuses for munitions... and you made them slower?

As someone who primarily runs around in armor, let me just say...

THANK YOU for the Lancer changes!