Feedback Thread for the "PlanetSide 2 Test Weekend"

I prefer the flight controls on the PTS but I can't really say what I like about it other than my mossie seems more responsive.

I do suggest having more cover rather than open ground in the middle of the cont to help encourage more 3 way parking. No real good parking spots on the South side of the biolab outpost for the faction that has to assault from that direction. From what I can see just looking around there's really only one decent spot on that side and it's off to the west rather than the south.

Just looking at Svarog (of course haven't had a proper fight there yet) I worry about the two entrances to the hex being right next to each other. Marzanna and Zorja have their entrances separated a bit more and to me that looks more enticing to attack.

Would also suggest halving the distance of lockons due to the crowded conditions. Increasing the rate of resource gain would help, I know there's going to be a graveyard of aircraft just outside (if not also inside) the WG.

Vehicle terminals at the WG are very far apart. Not really an issue just odd. Seems like a lot of wasted space right as you walk out the spawns.

I don't know if it's just my settings but the continent overall is very bright and looks washed out. My brightness is all the way down and I ended up having to turn down the brightness and contrast settings on my monitor to get it to look normal.

Looking forward to having some fights on it this weekend.

More to add on the fire bug noise staying on. I pulled a whole new gal and the noise went off for me but stayed on for another player that got in my gal even though I wasn't damaged

He also complained that gal turret movements were inverted when he has "Invert vertical fly" checked. He stated on the play servers its opposite of that. He stated it was working fine of the valk.

Flying does seem really clunky although that's not anything that hasn't already been said.

Koltyr looks really nice a good way for new people to get into the game in my opinion although I do hope some safeguards will be added to protect new players from people making alts just to troll them and such.

Only bugs I noticed were sometimes when messing with cosmetics and such my male character turned into a female, it would revert back eventually . I also noticed on some weapons attachments that were clearly attached as in I could see them on the gun were not showing up as equipped in the attachment slots. Some of the teleporters in some of the facilities were also not working.

Controls feel like they are trying to snap to target angles instead of smooth on live.

Friendly fire was on in the warp gates on Koltyr.

when flying, it is feels unresponsive and hard to aim at anything that's on the ground with the new mouse control. It feels slow to turn but maybe I just need to mess around with it more. Also when I am flying and I get critically damaged the alarm goes off and wont stop even if I repair it to full.

I played with AALockonN00b and learned that even AA lockons require some basic situational awareness and flying competence. I don't seem to have either. I did find a bug, after taking heavy damage in my Mosquito I landed and repaired, but when i took off it was still making the weeooeeooeeoo heavy damage sound. It even persisted till later when I was defending a Sunderer and I hopped in the gun to hear the continuing weeoos.

In the gun model screen on the class menu, there was one Mini Chain Gun that I could rotate normally, and there was another that was stuck pointing right at the camera.

On base design, super neat! I actually got into a proper 3 way Sunderer based fight with all three factions! I've never seen that before! It was hilarious! I also really like what you've done with a lot of the objective areas, mixing it up. However, I will question your putting innovative designs into the noob zone. I feel that it would be better training for noobs to see point areas about where they are normally, instead of in these awesome situations. Unless of course you intend to rework everything later in which case go for it.

While fighting inside a building, I somehow triggered the voiceover for the ammo tower. I guess I moused over the thing when I looked over a window. If I didn't know what that was already, I'd have been totally confused. I recommend setting a 10 meterish limit on those voiceover triggers so it doesn't give you your only explanation of what air pads do when you look at a tower 1 km away.

Where'd the noob directives go? I liked them.

And that's all! May I have a hat now?

On the Valkery, the controls for the gun are set just like default plane flying, meaning the Y axis reverse. There seems to be NO way to change that. Also, the speed at which the gun moves along the Y axis seems to accelerate as it gets closer to the top and bottom. Side to side movement of the gun seems ok.

Before the response, I played as a VS on the PTS. I should also mention that I do not fly regularly on live, so I don't know how precise pilots need to have while flying. I can only speak for myself on flying. Here is a list that I scrapped together (excuse my English):

Flying:
-Felt clunky and slow, hard to pitch on default flight settings, had to tinker with that up to ~0.7 on flight sensitivity in order to compensate for that.
-Still had the felling of clunky-ness to it, but adaptable after a few minutes of flying around the warp gate.
-Leaving the warp gate, got a few kills pilot kills, but I found it hard to aim due to the restrictiveness of the mouse and yaw, doing rolls were are harder to pull off.
-Even repairs, the low health alarm keeps going off constantly (Many others have said this already)
-Firing rockets go through the vehicle while in the pilots seat (Like shooting rockets out of the camera).
-Free look tends to roll the plane instead of locking the plane in place, I don't know if this was intentional or not.
-Overall, it feels lacking in comparison to live due to the mouse limitations, but I would have never noticed the change in controls if it was never mentioned. I'm curious as to how it feels if we did use the controller as intended.

As for Koltyr:
-It feels nice and feels welcoming to new players, first impressions are very important to pull off, and I think the texture of Amerish presents it well.
-Got TK'ed a few times in the warp gate.
-Access terminals are weird to access, only a certain spot can you access it.
-AA gun nozzles(?) tend to disappear on certain positions.
-Teleporter did not work unless you run through it in a certain way.
-Tutorial/voice-overs seem to play at random, I got the tutorial voice-over for flight terminals when I have already used them 3 times beforehand.
-Not once had we fought in the bio lab, all of the battles were taken place on the large outposts.
-Perhaps the cap times are too long? I don't think new players have the patience to wait for 20:00 long caps with 2/3 points. But assuming that this base was built for 96+ then disregard.
-It's more of a player fault, but due to the nature of PTS (Certs to unlock everything for testing), we can buy everything we need at a starting zone, future new players can't. I never see a level 1 with a lever 6 medic/engineer tool, with a fully certed Skyguard, a lock-on, or a 2nd AA max burster hand... we cannot accurately represent a starting area if we have everything that we need at one go...the only way to do that is if we have a batch of new players (without the 100,000 certs), then they will make better testers than we are on the starting island.

That was longer than I thought... whoops... but that was my day on the PTS. Will continue testing throughout the weekend. I enjoyed testing through it though, and the game ran on 60 fps this time! Keep up the good work!

Well with my limited experience flying the PTS seems a bit easier than live.Dunno why it just seems more forgiving if that makes any sense.

I had a bug where the low health alarm kept going off, I tried to replicate it but couldn't. Look into the low hp vehicle alarms I don't want them bugging out and going off constantly. q.q

I just did some extensive testing of the current version. all three weapon skins experience identical issues so I'll describe them with as much detail as I can here.

First and foremost, both the laser sight, and flashlight attachments 'hover' well below the weapon and well behind the rail, you don't even need to equip the weapon to see this, it shows up on the weapon customization screen, though it is still present when the weapon is equipped.

Secondly, reload animations. Boy, I gotta jump on this one a bit First,on the 1 or 2 shot reload, the character flicks the weapon to the left to close that side of the gun. Not only should the flick actually be to the right, that's not how the gun was meant to close. This is evidenced in the 3 or 4 shot reload, as the character instead flicks the release mechanism back up with his/her thumb, which properly initiates the retracting action. After playing around with both the Commissioner and Underboss, I have noted that the animation is correct only on the underboss. The Commisioner has the same animation issue; it appears as though the model simply flicks the gun, and camera, to the left a bit too far, and fails to flick the thumb upwards, on the Underboss the thumb animation and camera motion are lined up properly... I suspect this animation was copied over from the commissioner, and then assumed correct.

The 1 or 2 shot reload on this gun both feel slow. I realize this may be an intended gameplay feature, but the character certainly appears to take their time loading in that clip. the 3 shot reload feels right on the money, and while the 4 shot reload is an almost identical animation (feels like it should be, getting to that), it too feels a bit drawn out. I propose the 3 and 4 shot reload both be made a long reload, which is brought down to the same time as the current 1, 2, and 3 shot (3 seconds), and the 1 and 2 shot reload both be lowered to 2.5 seconds, which should make the previously mentioned reload speeds feel natural.

During the long reload the character appears to be holding 2 clips, but the one that is placed into the first half of the revolver sorta floats out of the character's hand from the beginning of the animation straight to the end of the first load, My best guess is that this is a de-sync'd prop that is still timed to the 3 second reload, as it appears to enter the chambers before the hand has finished moving into place. I have double checked both other revolver's long reload animations and they are without this fault, however, they both bug out, a lot more, on their 4 bullet reloads.

Whenever all 4 rounds are spent, the top rail jumps upwards, this occurs the instant the 4th round is fired, before the recoil animation even plays and is not properly synced up to the 4 round reload. Either a tweak to the 4 round reload is in order, or, perhaps more appropriately, the rail should stay in place for all but the reload animation. This issue is most easily demonstrated by equipping the weapon on an engineer, emptying it completely, dropping an ammo pack out of range, making sure the weapon is equipped, then walking into range, to watch it snap down before the animation begins... I would like to note that this particular issue is also present on the Underboss, and the commissioner.

Finally, on the weapon's proposed features itself; it is currently a straight downgrade to the commissioner, save the distance on the lower end of the damage spectrum. [MiniRant] As a stalker this upsets me, there's no reason to be afraid of giving us a good mid range weapon, and you're gimping every other classes fun over the fears of us 'abusing' them. Please reward our sneaky play-style.[EndRant] For a weapon with almost identical damage stats as the commissioner, arguably just a precision variant, the recoil pattern is a bit high. I propose base damage simply be increased out to 8 meters, to bring it in line with other ranged weaponry, and the recoil be lowered by about 1/4 to 1/2 it's current value, play with them both, see which feels right better. If you have to add a built in compensator to the gun to make this change feel good to you, I say go for it, nothing wrong with making the gun look cooler, though I had assumed this was why the end of the barrel is slanted; to direct initial escaping gasses upwards. As it stands, the weapon is facing an identity crisis, and needs something that makes it stand out against he other two, a situation you'd choose it in.

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I copied over all of my sensitivity settings from live Exactly, I notice no change in the Reaver's performance or handling, it responds to all my motions as expected. The only thing I have made special note of is that the a and d key seem to have a delay before they stop turning, this makes it difficult to precisely adjust your aim, thought I am unsure if this is present on live as I wasn't looking for it there. Pitch rates on the Valkery max out way to rapidly, and I don't have enough flight time with the other two to submit feedback.

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I like all the new cosmetics for the Lightning, can't wait to see them on live!, loving some of the new helmets too. I keep trying to think up something new, to make myself then holding off for one patch to see if someone else came up with it, I think some of the PLayer Studio people are mind readers.

Flying response time felt slow and made it difficult to engage my targets then usual. I would prefer we keep flight the same as it is now on live server.

Koltyr has a great base layout, I love the new design for the tower bases. Plus the terrain in Koltyr just seems a lot more unique and funner then Amerish. I know they are supposed to be similar but Koltyr is a blast to play on.

I only really fly valk and gals on live since I'm not much of a pilot myself, but the pts control feels a little bit more responsive and easier to pull off basic evasive maneuvers.

I'll give the control another go if I have the chance, other than that it seems like you guys added a ton of new tutorial messages, which is great.

received a lot of fun. found a few bugs, but above them already reported.

Ok Finally PTS is working, im completely new to this, but im a veteran in flying. My first impressions are: In general there are some important differences between the reaver in live and PTS for example the reaction of keybiding, i mean it feels so slow, especially while rolling, however is something i could use to. Another problem is the esf's free lock camera, the reaver is still rolling while using it.
The changes in the Valkirye are explendid, feels a loot better flying that thing .

Minor suggestion for Tank based cosmetics, the new Vanguard Hellion plating, Prowler Crusader Bumper, and Lightning Viper plating Cover your decal cosmetic, I'd recommend slapping that sucker on the left side of the turret base (right side for the prowler). Magrider Callisto bumper has this issue as well, but I cannot come up with a universal solution for this vehicle.

Terran BR 5, flew in a mosquito/lib for 30+ mins. Being a A2G attack aircraft myself, it's glorious. I'm not great at A2A, but I gave it a shot, considering this is a flight system in a whole. Absolutely not. Far too slow to dogfight well. Granted, it feels more... "fluid" because it's slower? I guess. Hard to explain the feeling. Regardless, I'd either find a balance between this and the current system, to give A2G an easier time. Either that, OR create a completely new aircraft using this new system, and give it A2G specified weapons, that way we get an ground attack aircraft. Something similar to the Warthog in real life. This way, we can actually make the interceptors made for proper intercepting and a new aircraft made for taking out ground targets, perhaps use a similar system to the wraith cloaking system on the flash to help the aircraft? That's my opinion of the new flight system.

Edit: Don't forget the helmet! I love dem helmets.

Ok so this is my opinion after 1 hour spent on Koltyr trying to avoid that dumb people, who were just sitting on the warpgate in their aircraft!!! Seriously guys? I've tested just mosquito, because I fly with it a lot on live server. Same build, same certifications...

Flight model:
1. It is pretty good with mouse acceleration and input lag reduction switched off
2. With mouse acceleration (yes, I know how that's working) the aircraft is a bit less responsive... It sometimes took a while, before my mossi realised what I wanted it to do...
3. Same case is with input lag reduction...
4. Another thing is multiple operations: when I hold W, D, Space and wanted to do something else, the mossi just didn't do it sometimes... It didn't catch that fourth button...
5. Lastly, I got an impression, that the aircraft sensitivity (I am playing on max.) is still smaller, than on the live server

Koltyr:
1. The continent itself is nice but a bit small
2. New warpgates are good (except the big monument in the middle... -.-)
3. I would like to see immortality for players and vehicles on Koltyr wargate same as on the others please
4. TR Koltyr warpgate maybe doesn't have a restricted area zone...

Ground-Air Lock-Ons:
These ones are damn screwed up, so you technically can't evade them. They've chased me even to my own warpgate trough hole Koltyr! God dammit, I thought they have some maximal lock-range. When somebody lock you and shoot out the rocket you can do whatever you want (flying inside warpgate, flying behind rocks, trees, ...) but you just can't lose it...

That's all from me. For TR from Miller -RCTerran

Been thinking about this specifically, I remember seeing it suggested a few times on the Development thread that this be made into a single shot, high damage precision handgun.

After playing with it's current iteration on test, I'm for this idea, a reload between every shot of about 3 seconds is a perfect trade off for a long range side arm, so long as it has the damage to match that. It leaves the weapon with a clear purpose, without out performing BASRs or closer ranged side arms. If you also give it a CoF similar to a BASR when fired without using the scope, it'll additionally prevent most players from preferring it over their main weapons, as even in close quarters you'd have to take the time to bring up the scope, and it's a forced 4*, which simply isn't viable in that situation.

I'd also propose you remove the laser sight entirely, maybe make it's default reload speed 4 seconds, and throw in a quick loader as it's special rail attachment, which then reduces the reload to three seconds; give people a reason to choose between it or the flashlight.

An interesting side point is also raised by this weapon, It'd be nice to be able to change the color of the reticule to whichever color and strength you Prefer, leaving the similar optical strengths to just a choice of pattern.

I flew around for 30+ minutes and it seemed like 6 hours to me.. Too much air on too few of flightspace make for a hectic test.

The way i see it is that these changes benefit the hover-type of flying, but just wreck the dogfighting-style of flying. controls feel to clunky to pull of manouvers.

If we are going ahead with these setups i would recommend the following options:
-let players decide the old or new style input
-give players the option to 'Yaw' with their mouse

If not i have a feeling we'll have a disadvantage against controllers.