Is weapon balance all people care about ?

I care about my family too~

much more sane over there +1

This is a bit of an issue as well.

We've talked over redeployside and resource revamp TO DEATH.

Until they actually DO something about it, or at the VERY least lay down their plan to continue with them, there really isn't a whole lot to discuss on the matter.

We've laid out our thoughts on the matter comprehensively. It's on them to do something to move discussion forward.


tl:dr; Flash OP, nerf Lib.

It's gotten to be the same way on reddit. At one time it might have been full of insightful ideas but not really so much these days. There simply hasn't been much development to discuss lately so I suppose we just rehash the same things over and over again.

Live free in the NC

Well you see, (nerf the orion) this game has been out long enough that people are mostly concerned about balance. (nerf the orion) I mean yeah you could talk about how some of the bases are horribly designed (nerf the orion) in that vehicles can just shell the spawn room (nerf the orion) or how biolabs are designed to heavily favor the defender (nerf the orion), but at the end of the day it mostly comes down to weapon balance since when people are killed with something over and over again (nerf the orion) they tend to think that it's OP and not just one of the very few effective weapons for an entire faction (nerf the orion).

this question is simply the result of broken promises and shattered dreams. people talk about those things because thats all the devs ever bother to do, because it takes the least amount of effort. Most of us seem to have given up hope of anything more significant ever happening.

Not sure what is your point. Did PS2 devs ruin the game cuz they listened to players too much or devs didnt listen and now game is in perfect state cuz of that?

There is something fishy about your post. I suspect it was written just to distract reader from vital issue of nerfing the orion.

So after reading the OP i decided to check if what they were saying was true.
I read the top 10 at the time thread OPs and noted the following:

1. Thread about 'scummy' tactics
2. Thread about adding a supressor to directive SMGs
3. Thread about adding a ramming spike to the gal
4. Thread with video about mags climbing hills
5. Discussion about the viability of a solo shredder lib
6. Video showing killing MBTs with an ESF
7. Discussion about Ravens
8. **This thread
9. Discussion about giving forum privelages to only paying members
10. Thread about in-game bug that stops a player from playing.

In that top ten at the time of looking i see maybe 4 that directly discuss weapons, only 1 of them actualy discuss an imbalanced weapon, the others suggest additional weapons or alternate uses for weapons.

So i actualy see about 10% in that list that is a 'nerf weapon X' thread as OP describes it.

This looks like another sky is falling exageration thread to me.

People who post learned their tactics already, for the most part, I disagree that all of the discussion is weapon based, but alot of it is probably because people do not see the changes they want happening fast enough, and there is no response from devs on balance concerning such weapons, for other players to link the info,

To sum up what Higby in his interview after leaving said, they try to not just nerf weapons cause they sell these things. the orion, basically saying it might be .001% stronger than lmgs, but he didn't seem very concerned about it. The changes that are made to the game are the ideas of the developers not the forums, some times they will see some thing that will change there direction but it is rare. The devs use the community feedback mainly to get a pulse of what direction people want the game to go, they don't simply bend to the will of the forums,
(This is an interpretation of a long interview,)

so people make posts for gamers here to change the gamers minds.

And this is where you are wrong. That's literally all the game is.

Planetside 2 is a pub game. So yes, most people are going to whine about this kind of stuff.

Most people don't want players to have to stay on point to flip them.

Most people are used to the timers and don't think about changing them.

The only changes PS2 Devs make with any regularity is Unit/Cert/Weapon balance changes. Roadmap is dead. So players don't spend as much time asking for things they don't expect ever to happen (though it's still a popular pastime). They stopped Bug fixing a long time ago, so most players don't bother discussing/posting them either.

The game was launched, the game had a period of content growth. Then SOE laid off Dev staff, then shifted PS2 programmers on to other projects, then the company got sold and the Dev staff was further gutted including people who asked to be laid off. It's been pretty quiet since then.

Lots of Server Smash and Standard Game playtime has established what tactics work best for both Hardcore Organized and Casual players. They each use the same tactics over and over, with slight variations based on periodic nefs: Banshee gets nerfed, switch to Hellfire Rocket Pods.

New players in the game tend to find the game unplayable, Cert rate and price of Weapons a joke, and often suspect it's P2W. They leave before long, so we don't hear about them much on forums.

The Unit/Cert/Weapon balance in the game has shifted around, but remained broken since launch: there is always LOTS to request be fixed.

If the playerbase makes enough noise for long enough, PS2 Devs respond by actually paying attention and making changes to address it. So many players spend there efforts trying to trigger these Unit/Cert/Weapon balance changes.

Hope that clarifies it for you. Any other questions?

Reddit has so far only done one good thing for me this year, last year, and within this decade and last: that Planetside Classic thread gave me a suggested time to play where populations should be relatively healthy - weekends, 6-9 CST.

This is why I own twelve different helmets.... I have to look pretty while I slay my enemy. Otherwise, what is the point?

No, thankfully devs use their own heads, which in no way made the game perfect, but it kept it on a much higher niveau than this chaotic community would manage to. My point is that I wish people would leave these (made up) issues to unbiased and professional, paid personnel and keep quiet.

100% agree but as TR?
The Banshee helmet is the only one I could get friends with, but it's plenty cause I love it.

Perhaps our vanity will bring peace.
We can all agree, we enjoy looking our best on the battlefield.

Ideally, a game with ongoing Content Development works with input from both Devs and Community (and other influences such as competitors in the genre, useful ideas in other genres, etc.). They can all be valuable sources of feedback, and contribute to the direction of creative development.

It's the Devs who are the custodians of most content. But like any business, the barometer of customer feedback and satisfaction, or just that communication/connection with the customer, competitors, etc. can be of amazing value.

Well, that's a tricky one to address with SOE. Because SOE was both slow and terrible at both Balance and Bug Fixing. But they were very good at Super Creative New Features.

So while adding Super Creative New Features doesn't help alleviate Balance and Bug Problems, it's one of the only areas that SOE/DBG can reliably provide good (and sometimes quick) improvement to the game.

When SOE had to figure out "Balance" they froze up. They started looking at it, didn't know what to do, so they kept looking at it, lots of time passed, they still couldn't figure it out and still didn't know what to do, so they just nerf the offending unit to death or shuffle some stat numbers around. Asking them to *FOCUS* on Balance is a nightmare, it's like asking an Armored Knight to focus on their run game.

Proffesionals cant read minds and perfectly understand what players want, what would keep them in game and make them spend more money. Thats why game shrank to 5 half-empty servers. There is huge gap between listening to players and implementing every stupidity suggested by every random guy.

Well, and this (in yellow) is a perfect summary and explanation why old SOE balancing sucked, was bad, wrong and stupid as hell. Becasue Higby's team were doing balance with the rule in mind "we know better what to nerf and how, fk you who actually play the game!" and so we had all those pointless nerfs, pointless buffs, overnerfs and just worst balancing decisions I have seen in my gaming life. Truly, I am glad Higby is gone. Maybe now new team will listen to players who play game, instead of sitting with sheets and stats and nerfing things basing on.

Lets take example of PPA.

Dev A: "This thing is overperforming, we have to nerf it a little"
Dev H: "Yea... have you ever use it?
Dev A: "Nope, never. But stats shows that it overperforms"
Dev H: "I also never use it, but I have its stats here!"
Deb A: "lets take a look...hmmm.... Ok- lets nerf velocity, splash, dmg, radius...and....hmm"
Dev H: "Lets also add COF bloom!"
Dev A: "Ok. Lets do it all at once and we are done"
Dev H: "I wonder how it will peform after nerfs"
Dev A: "I am sure good, it overperforms so well that there has to be something in this weapon, right?"

That's how it was. And this later add more work to fix overnerfs which could be easly avoided just by listening to feedback, using weapon or doing small tweaks one by one.

So far BBurness is much better than Higby and listen to players. That means cooperation, some consensus. When Higby was in charge it was like (with Tank cannons nerfs): "We dont give a dam about your feedback, we know better, thanks for feedback, sorry if 99,9% of you disagree, we push it to Live anyway, bye bye".

source for your quotes? if not misleading is bad mmmmkay? (quotations literally mean that some one has said this and you can prove it)

Now I'm not a big fan of what they have done to that weapon,
but it was pretty broken, I wasn't defending what they have changed, it was simply the explanation I had at hand.

If you watch the interview he didn't say what I said, it was pieced together from several statements, I used a disclaimer, no quotes.
perhaps I should not have left out that those ideas were formed over time, he speaks as though mistakes were made, but not in nerfing weapons, simply introducing them too powerful, and not being able to nerf them properly with out blowback from players, thats why the Valkre and Spitfire were released weak so they could buff them after,

The developers do play the game, Higby spoke about his new auraxiums when he got them, even though devs have expressed that they wish they could get more in game time before don't be misled, they created the game they know what it is better than you do,
the difference is a mater of perspective and game meta. as things change some things become more powerful, they stand out alot more when other problems are gone too,

Now I don't agree with some of the changes that are made and I am free to my opinion as is every one, but when it comes down to it, if the players decided what would be changed. no one would play the game cause it would be broken.

That doesn't mean their input should not be voiced and heard, but even though I voice my opinion I know that in some cases what I want may not make sense ether for reasons I don't understand at the time,