TTK creates a disparity between classes, should be lowered.

In this game, there are classes that are stronger. While I think that is not exactly the smartest thing, I think they should be balanced on health and should be able to 1v1 each other--the perks of the class are the utilities, the high TTK (excluding 1OHK, more on that in a moment) creates a disparity between classes. Heavies can activate shields and gain further health--even though their weapons are very good on their own.

I have been playing this game for a while, having previously played a few shooters (RO2, and BFBC2) and I just played the others once again. It feels slow, and very unrewarding for playing skillfully. If you take your time to be stealthy and position yourself well, you can often still be killed simply because of NMG + NW5. I feel this disrupts gameplay in a huge way. Bullets move slow in this game, and do little damage individually. It creates a feeling of weakness in general gunplay.

I propose a general lowering of health by 30%.

Thoughts?

edit: constructive criticism please, not "go play Battlefield", and all that. Be kind, it's just a suggestion.

Lower health by 30%? It's funny how there are many threads asking for longer TTK and you'd prefer shorter. Not to mention this is a sly HA nerf thread. My suggestion is to use either your factions highest ROF weapon, VS do have high ROF weapons, or use the 167 @ 10m damage tier weapon for harder hitting power, VS has those too. Also, NW5, which costs over 1100 certs only adds 125 health. This amounts to almost nothing really against almost all weapons. It's only really useful to stop a OHK from a sniper rifle at long range. And all the Infiltrators currently are complaining to remove that function. Thus making NW5 a waste a ton of certs.

Wait a second, I don't think I've read it right. You want, what again?

WHAT?!

LOWERING?! Lowering what, TIME TO KILL, what the f*ck?! So everyone dies like, instantly?

If anything, the TTK should be higher by 30%, maybe even by 35%.

Besides, you mentioned BFBC2, didn't you? Are you sure you played it? Not in lousy "hardcore" mode? Because it's quite high there by modern standards, higher than that of Planetside2.

You see, the skill in FPS is usually determined by things other than "saw first", "fired the first shot", "better hidden" etc. It's determined from how good your aim is, how fast your reaction is, how you can remain calm under pressing odds, how you react to environment and other players.
Lowering the TTK eliminates almost every thing I just listed.

You have no time to react and return fire if you are dead in under a second.

It doesn't matter where you're shooting you opponent, to the center mass or to the head - he saw you first, he's already shooting at you, he can be hitting your leg for that matter, he's getting the kill.

No place for tactics, get the faster firing weapon with more bullets in it's chamber, spray and pray until someone out-sprays you or gets lucky.


Please also bear in mind that this game has Client-side hit detection with lag-compensation. These things combined create some "Outstanding Issues™" with overall hit detection, making it all unreliable at best. Making TTK shorter will only make things more and more random, unpredicatable, luck based, which is the opposite of skill.

It's probably because to play this game skillfully you'll need a wider skillset than positioning, sneaking and 'who shoots first wins'. If anything it enhances the need for skillful gunplay and aim.

I fully agree with your post except for this. BC2's TTK was definitely faster than that of PS2 and that's coming from someone who spent more than 700h on that game. (Normal only, HC sucked balls)

Subtle buff shotguns thread, mate

The numbers behind the weapons in BC2 and PS2 are almost exactly the same.

It couldn't be, I have probably even more hours wasted on it, and I'm very sure it was a bit higher on average. Maybe comparable to average time it takes to kill Heavy Assault with full shields.

Or maybe you're right and my memory serves me badly due to times I've played CoD:BO (guilty on all charges).

You got everything backwards. Low TTK rewards bad players because aim is pretty much useless. This game already has a very low TTK and lowering it more will pretty much leave everything a one shot kill. Then it's not about skill at all, it's about who sees the other player first.

You also seem to completely miss the point that there is supposed to be a difference between classes. The HA is designed to go head on and thus he has a shield to make him last a bit longer. The LA is made for flanking so he can get into sneaky places and get the jump on people or shoot them from places they do not expect. With this short TTK, a player on the roof will often kill a HA shield or no shield long before he has time to run into cover or even figure out where the fire is coming from. So the two assault classes, HA and LA have different styles. One is more tanky and one is more maneuverable. It's a game mechanic as old as game balancing. It even has a solid basis in real world physics where armour is heavy which means slow. So you are either slow but can take a lot of hits or you are fast and can take less damage. The support classes are not supposed to be able to deal heavy damage because they are support.

Low TTK makes playing the game successfully about emphasis cover, defensible positions and flanking.

High TTK makes playing the game successfully about pushing and retreating as you can actually take 2 steps with dying.

Planetside 2 has no cover mechanics to speak of really. Its bases are porous. Spawns can be set up anywhere to bring a whole army out of nowhere to flank. Guess which TTK I'd prefer given the current game.

I've also noticed that for the bullet damage, but the Rate of Fire is nowhere the same for the same damage tier. Link
Recoil and spread were also entirely different and although fun and relatively skillful, BC2's gunplay was very much about tap-firing as fast as you could to maintain high accuracy and damage output. Something you can't do in PS2 (or BF3 which gunplay these guns are very much designed after) because of the increased First Shot Recoil Multiplier.

Edit: BC2 also had Magnum Ammo (25% damage increase) that pretty much everyone used.

I've used Serpent, and Pulsar C. They are decent, but I've gone on to abandon LA (not anything with the class, just changing things up) and I play Infiltrator most often, mostly with the auto scout rifle.

P.S: I do think HAs should be nerfed, that's why I made the title as it is.

Heavies aren't any slower than other classes, they move the same speed, and LAs are not faster. Their jetpack is something that gives them mobility, yes, but it doesn't make you fast. Also, casting something as a "support" and saying they shouldn't be able to fight the HAs or LAs is not really good game design, it's a good way to make a massive amount of players play one class, cutting diversity by a great majority. For example, HAs make up a massive chunk of players, more than any other classes.

AV Capabilities + Shield + LMGs = Better at everything, just can't repair or heal.

All classes can be good, but why should one class be padded with extra simply because it's "heavy"?

Edit: low TTK promotes tactical awareness, and positioning. They are different skills, but higher TTK and as it is already makes the game's guns feel weak. We all want to feel strong, and rewarded for playing intelligently. 10 rounds to kill...is just a silly notion. On Carbines (143 weapons in general) if it goes over 9 rounds to kill, it would just become boring.

My thoughts on shotguns...are that they would be fine if carbines and ARs killed in 3-4 shots in CQC.
Lower TTK and increased bullet speed would create a ranged combat, too.

There should be a disparity between classes. TTK should in no circumstances be lowered.

PA users should be forced to wear humiliating, pink camo.

Aim is important, definitely. Even a bullet speed increase would be nice, as ranged combat in this game is very lacking.

Oh yes.

how can people say bf hardcore mode was bad? the normal mode was excruciatingly slow, it was like ps2 but over here we at least have shields and massive armor to at least make it somewhat plausible.. over there it didnt make sense at all and hardcore mode was a zillion times better

(I play exclusively hardcore mode, I know how you feel.)

++++++++++++++++++++
"saw first", "fired the first shot", "better hidden" etc.
++++++++++++++++++++

= brain

++++++++++++++++++++
how fast your reaction is....
++++++++++++++++++++

= nerves


I prefer "brain", you know, tactical approaches, military way of moving etc...

Yes they are when they have their shield up. With the shield, they get more hitpoints but they are slower. Without the shield, they have exactly the same hitpoints as everybody else except the infiltrator. So if you give both the LA and the HA the same SMG and don't allow anyone to use their class ability. They will perform identically because there is no difference at all between them. With the shield, you get more hitpoints but lose mobility. With the jumpjet, you are noisy but you are faster and a lot more mobile.

Actually it is good game design because if support did the same amount of damage as the assault class there would be no reason to ever play anything other than support. You have to have some kind of drawback to the ability to heal and to the ability to get infinite ammo. That is called good game design. It seems you need to study the concept of asymmetric balance.

You can basically have two kinds of balances in a game. Either symmetric or asymmetric. A symmetric balance is easy. You just make one single class and that's it. You can give it different skins but the core is the same for everyone. The first RTS did this. In the original Warcraft, the human and orc team was identical. The only difference in their units was the skins. That's symmetrical balance. What we have here is an asymmetrical balance where some units are good at some things but bad at others. That gives a much more dynamical game play since you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of the class you play. A heavy is designed to take more damage at the cost of mobility. This type of game play promotes teamwork because if you have a good team, you can compensate for the other player's weaknesses with your own strengths. This is a game designed around team work. The very core of it is the squad and the platoon. If everybody was the same, this would seriously hurt the game. Have a look around other games and see how they handle it. In games where there is no difference between players, you tend to have no real team work. You get a lot of players doing their own thing at the same time.

If you do not like this concept I suggest you try some fast paced twitch shooter. Quake Live is pretty fun and there everybody is exactly the same. The only difference is cosmetic and player skill. You run fast, you shoot fast and you die fast. It's great fun but it's a fundamentally different game than Planetside 2. So the problem isn't the game, it's your expectations.