Developer Thread: QoL Changes

Feature: Include an aimpoint for vehicle passenger positions

Reason: Spotting targets is almost impossible from passenger positions without some sort of aimpoint. Should be very easy to implement.

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Feature: Fix reflex sight color and effect issues

Reason: Regardless of quality settings, fps, auto LOD, whatever seems to be affecting this, the reflex sights should ALWAYS be bright red and have the laser glow effect. No clue why the reflex sight picture is so unreliable and often dull and dark with no laser effect, but it's an issue brought up throughout the forum and elsewhere.

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Feature: Improve vehicle crosshairs to be far more useful in calculating impact point and estimating range.

Reason: The tank cannons and secondary weapons that have significant drop have woefully inadequate reticles. The vertical markings aren't labeled, don't go far enough for the higher drop secondaries, have no markings for leading sideways...

Link:
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...d-we-please-fix-the-tank-optics-please.81579/
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/range-finder-and-improve-tank-sight.85694/
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...s-pls-chime-in-for-better-zoom-optics.197577/
http://3.bp.************/_59GYpEVAu0U/TNjyDuwSXnI/AAAAAAAAAjA/iCLZdDR0Cz4/s1600/reticle3.jpg
http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/images/2/2d/M1A1(HA)_GAS_HEAT_reticle2.jpg

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Feature: Keep the metagame player driven by keeping adversarial alerts. Modify alert rules rather than removing them.

Reason: Planetside is more than a MMOFPS, it's also has player driven battle lines. The recent removal of adversarial alerts and return to timed alerts has taken away a major portion of the player driven metagame.

Link: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...emove-adversarial-alerts.199176/#post-2898744
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Feature: Give smoke from smoke grenade a small poisonous effect, dealing a little damage. Like reversed triage. 50 damage every second.

Reason: Makes smoke grenades more fun and useful. Giving them a little bit of area denial aspect and a small source of XP.

I support this wholeheartedly when applied to directives progress. You can play for a very long time being an effective fighter but not get many full kills depending on your style and weapon choice. There should be a system in place that counts 10 assists as a kill, or if more detailed, counts partial kills based on how much % damage you contributed to the kill. So, if you injured an enemy to 75% and someone else kills them, you build a .75 credit for kill counts on weapon.

I'd say probably a different underbarrel launcher. Poison smoke would be amazing though : D

Thumbs up because I like your sig.

ANYWAY.

Feature: Raise Tankbuster price to 1000 certs, or remove it's ability to oneclip any tank.
Reason: It's OP and annoying as hell.

Feature: Implement duct tape
Reason: The infantry peasants need silencing, and I heard duct tape over helmet speakers is great.

Feature: Give Magrider and all Vanu sniper rifles (And slug shotguns) no bullet drop.
Reason: Because the only good thing about the VS is removed from weapons it would be useful on.

This thread is a Good Idea™.

Feature: Zoom Crosshairs for the commish.
Reason: When you zoom in, the crosshairs disappear. Silly. Give me a scope or something, or at least make the crosshairs appear when I zoom in. As long as we're on crosshairs anyway....

Feature: Everyone is thinking it, so I'll just say it. The crosshairs in PS2 nibble damp goat nad.
Reason: Even wayyyy back in Quake 3 you could change the crosshair - styles, colors, etc. I'm running my system on high quality at 1280, default gamma, and with Vanu weapons (which often include some energy-looking bloom when the rounds land) it's often hard/impossible to see the crosshairs at all. I'd guess that if all the futuristic technology to land bio domes and play around with immortality with nanites, etc, is all available, some of our scientists could glean the mysteries of a configurable crosshair?? Bigger, brighter, etc would be nice....

Feature: Grenade alerts.
Reason: When the grenade alert graphic (the red grenade thingy) is bouncing around, it has very little to do with where the grenade actually is. A better solution might be to simply have a flashing alert similar to the lock on alert, and a red arrow in the HUD appear pointing at the grenade. As it is, the 2D/3D paradigm of how the data is represented in the client doesn't lend itself very well to accurately portraying where the grenade actually is.

Bug: Infiltrator Actions often lag, requiring you to push the button several times.
Reason: Often, when running up to a term or a turret to hack it, an inf will see the graphic pop up indicating that the target can be hacked; but when you push the button to begin hacking, nothing happens - you've actually pushed the button before the client is ready or something, and you have to push it again. This always costs a couple of seconds, and in the heat of combat, these can be critical. Please make it so the client will 'poll' the availability of a hacking target if the inf is pressing the button.

Gigantic annoyance: 'Suicide! Stop Killing Yourself'
Reason: This was funny the first thousand times we saw it. It's not funny now, particularly when most suicides are from things like falling through the world or flipping the flash on a pebble, or other spurious software-related issues as opposed to simple bad decisions. I don't mind it so much when I'm creeping across a bridge and fall off - that's my own fault. It's irritating to see it when I fly into an invisible structure that someone forgot to remove. Under a bridge. On Indar. Near the Crown. For instance. Thx for fixing that one, btw.

Feature: Mouse Pitch and Yaw flight model.
Reason: If I have to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand.

XP generated per weapon would be fine - either as primary, as support, etc.

Hello,

Feature: Valkyrie Gunner Spotlight/Searchlight

Reasons: 1. It could look really cool.
2. Having a spotlight, controlled by the by the gunner, would allow for the crew and friendly forces to find enemies in the night.
3. It could be made to reveal cloaked infiltrators.
4. It would scare the crap out of snipers and recon teams hiding on the ground.

MozzarellaIce

Feature: Option to turn off outfit/squad/platoon logging/leaving/joining notifications

Reason: It is very annoying to see your chat and screen being spammed my ??? left the outfit or ??? joined your squad.

Link: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...-turn-off-outfit-logging-notification.191716/



Bug: You can't see your own shadow.

Reason: As the title says, you can't see your own shadow when playing infantry/max, which is for some reason annoys me.


Bug: Terminal repair animation

Reason: When you repair a destroyed equipment/vehicle/aircraft terminal to a functional state, the animation and sound will stop being playing. It will repair, it just doesn't show the animation or play the sound. If you stop and start repairing again after the animation and sound stopped, you will get the sound and animation back.


Feature: Merge and create new chat tabs

Reason: I want the ability to create and merge new chat tabs, lets say I want to create a tab where I can see friends' chat and merge it with squad and platoon chat. Why? Because it is annoying to have to change tabs all the time.

Link: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/improvements-for-the-chat-system.191938/

Feature: Add firing mode for charge-fire weapons which disables charging when selected

Reason: A common complaint from players using charge-fire weapons is that if you attempt to fire them at their maximum uncharged rate of fire, clicking too quickly causes the charge mechanic to artificially impose a firing delay on the weapon by briefly charging before the shot is fired, resulting in inaccuracy and lost DPS. This is especially annoying on the Spiker, which is sort of a bad weapon to begin with, but that's besides the point.

I'm not calling for a stat buff for any charge-fire weapon, just a simple mechanic change to remove some frustration: add an alt-fire mode, similar to switching between semi/burst/auto on normal guns, that simply disables charging, allowing you to fire uncharged shots at the weapon's listed maximum rate of fire. This would allow for more accurate semi-auto fire with the Phaseshift, better aim and the ability to achieve sorely needed lost DPS with the Spiker, and include it on the Lancer too because why not. Any future charge-fire weapons should have this functionality as well.

It's a bit late now, but would it be possible to make VS aircraft HUDs bright green (like actual military aircraft) instead of light sky blue? The current color is almost invisible against a sky background which is what you are going to see most of the time in your Scythe.

Feature: Highlighting HIGH THREAT targets with a different color or marker

Reason: This could a simple incentive for a mini-game that would show that a target is an MVP/VIP when spotted conventionally.
It wouldn't take much to code and would create a challenging aspect for both the target and people hunting for high skill players.

You can imagine that the VIP would have medic bodyguards that would try and keep him alive and you could even implement a bonus for protecting said VIP. At the other end of the spectrum, spotting these high value targets and marking them as such would direct their attention to them and appropriately take them out.

Example:AA nests or a particular sunderer spawn to even targeting aces out of groups of flyers.
Aside from regular spotting and marking of the target, the extra indicator can determine the priority level

I know I've already posted - but I'm not sure if this has been mentioned and it consistently annoys me.


Feature: Fix first shot recoil multipliers so that semi-auto and burst firemodes arn't useless.

Reason: I should be able to switch to semi auto for more accurate longer range shots - but currently doing so is impossible due to the first shot recoil multiplyers applying across all firemodes. Either stop them from affecting burst and semi - or dramatically reduce the effect they have. It makes no sense that a weapon is more accurate when firing in full auto. Even a intertia compensated action will still reduce felt recoil just as much in semi as in full auto. The battle rifles seem to have about the right value.

I am uncomfortable with the thought of infantry on the back of a flash spinning 180 degrees at the waist or neck.

Feature: Fix sun movement on Amerish for the sunrise and sunset. Ever since the shortening of Amerish nights the movement of the sun and moon has not been synchronized with the lighting and sky coloration. The sun should be at the center of the color as it used to be.

Reason: It looks awful. It's not the way it's meant to be.

Links:
Sunrise https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/map-aesthetic-polish.195736/#post-2844218
Sunset https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/map-aesthetic-polish.195736/#post-2859112

I've heard a rumor that SOE will already be implementing this down the road, but just want to give extra support to this, as it would be really great to have with the server merges.

Feature: Upgrade a platoon.

Reason: As everyone knows, people can form together and create squads. Those squads can then form a platoon. Well with the recent server merges we have a lot of people running together, whether that is geographically or figuratively. We really need a feature in place to allow platoons to join together and create the next tier of organization. (Just using an example here) Phoenix Battalion, the largest NC outfit on Emerald fields anywhere from 1-3 platoons every day. Now, they aren't the most skilled players, and it would probably help if they could communicate (or at least assign where people are going) easier if they could combine platoons and spread out more. (Another example) The Coalition Of Badass, a New Conglomerate organization of small outfits who work together, sometimes do joint squads to encourage corrdination between the outfits. Well it is becoming a problem because as soon as platoon one of players is filled up nobody wants to leave to start a second platoon because all of our friends are in the first platoon. If the game allowed us to join platoons together, it would help COB out a lot in allowing us to field more players for the NC.

Feature: regular attachments for Auraxium weapons.

Reason: They are sub-optimal compared to regular weapons

FEATURE/IRRITANT: Air vehicle ram damage in general, and specifically when one ESF is on fire and rams another ESF in order to get a cheap kill.

FIX: Remove ramming damage between air vehicles; instead have only disorientating bounces ensue which may result in the aircraft crashing into terrain or facilities.

REASON: Ramming is an irritant and provides no positive impact on the game. Removing this damage - which does not exist for any other vehicles in the game - will mean that when you win a dogfight you will actually win it. The pilot who looses the fight will not be able to simply ram you and kill you. These rams often happen when one aircraft is hardly damaged at all and the other one is on fire. The one which is on fire will ram the nearly full health aircraft; destroying both.

It is common practice for Libs and Gals to simply ram ESFs and other aircraft instead of trying to shoot them.

POTENTIAL NEW GAMEPLAY BENEFIT: Ramming could become a skill whereby aircraft are caused to fly into terrain or off track from their target. This would be much more fun for both parties than the cheap death ram after one pilot is beat.

Part of being a good ESF pilot is seeing the ram comings and not just flying into the person. It is extremely easy to avoid a Galaxy/Lib or burning ESF ram, you are FAR more maneuverable than them...pay more attention to your surroundings and avoid getting tunnel vision when attacking a target.

Work on grenade physics.