[Suggestion] Please Reconsider Continent Perks

...Or give a boost to Nanites.

Hear me out here; I'll keep this short and sweet. What Planetside 2 has to offer, that no other game can offer, is the open world and the vehicle game. Removing the continent perks of discount vehicles has put a major damper on that aspect of the game. I'm sure you've considered this, and done studies and data mining on balance and the application of this-versus-that, but there's something I think you've missed in that consideration...

FUN.

I play Planetside for the vehicles. I play almost exclusively engineer. So I lose in most CQ confrontations. I'm okay with that because I have a blast with tanks and planes.

I'll openly admit I'm a 4th factioner, but with a caveat. I *never* use information from one faction against another. The reason I'm a 4th factioner is because I feel like faction loyalty means you're missing out on 66% of the game. Also, I used to play whichever faction had discount vehicles as that's where I have FUN.

So now what do I do when I run out of nanites on all three characters? I log out, that's what.

And that's NOT good for the game.

It's worth pointing out that I work nights so I never get to play during peak times. That makes it hard to go CQ and regain nanites. I'm pretty much relegated to sitting around waiting for regen on them. I don't even deploy C4 or tank mines any more as I can't afford them. And I'm not great a dogfighting so I don't pull ESFs anymore either (although that was my favorite mode of gameplay). Couple that with how often you accidentally ram a friendly ESF and both lose out on 350 nanites and that just plain sucks.

So to reiterate: There are a LOT of online shooters I could play. Why should I play PS2 when I can't pull vehicles and have fun?

Before I get FLAMED-ON keep this in mind: We all log in for one basic reason. To have FUN. When the game is no longer FUN, people stop logging in. What happens next?

Suggestions: You obviously can't go back to discount vehicles. As someone else pointed out, increase Nanite recharge rate / total cap. Make all vehicles cost less. Or, and I can't stress this enough, ENABLE NANITE REGEN WHILE OFFLINE. I can already see me logging in, seeing I have no nanites on any character, and just going to play something else.

I understand this is not your point with this thread, but I disagree here, and would like to treat myself with some off-topicness. Yes, sticking to one single faction will make you miss out on a lot of unique traits and equipment, e.g. as TR you will never have a chance to jump 200m with a Magrider or steer camera guided missiles.

However, I feel faction loyalty is a bigger element in the game than the unique things you are missing out on, especially considering that you will have to face those unique things anyways, so they are still part of your game experience. As in, crushing rebel scum as the military of the united Earth will always have a special place in my heart.

That, and that sticking to a faction will often turn the game into a faction-showoff, showcasing which faction has the best toys on the battlefield. My Striker, Minigun, and full lockdown Prowler agree. This is what I like about Planetside the most: you are putting the best of what your faction offers to demolish your opposition.

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Considering the rest of what you said, I perfectly understand what you are feeling, but cannot say more than that this is a combined arms game. I find it the most fun when playing in some kind of rotation, even though I indeed frequently do all-evening Prowler runs (up to the point where sometimes entire squads and platoons simply leave the game or go elsewhere).

I'd rather just farm now. Whoever will lock locks, I don't care anymore. I think the vast majority of individual players think this way as well. Locking continents is something big outfits and outfit alliances can actively try to achieve through a conscious effort (it's not something an individual could significantly influence).

I happen to be in a huge outfit and in a pretty high position. However, with the current perks for locking a continent it's just not worth the effort. To force a lock it takes a lot of coordinated effort, especially from those leading outfits. You have to put in hours of leading your platoon, or being the FC of multiple platoons. The current rewards are simply not worth the effort. So these days when I lead I just look for a good farm/fight for my platoon.

Continents will still lock, but more by virtue of chance (who happens to have the most territory at the end of an alert). Me, and I think most of my outfit, will no longer actively pursue continent locks.

And I'm sure DBG misses you terribly but not everyone is exclusively a tanker or a flyer. I believe there was some support for changing things and the devs are simply not going to reverse all the work they've done. Do you buy resource boosts to improve the situation? If you are a member you'll know that DBG even gives you the DBC to buy them with.

I've just seen another post from someone who only plays the game to fly Libs - same deal really, it sucks to be a minority interest but it's a multi-role game and wider balance (whatever you think of it) is adjusted from time to time to appeal to a wider audience.

ITs funny the devs (and youself) seem to imply to us that being a dedicated vehicle user is wrong, you shouldnt be able to chain pull tanks, or sundies, or harassers, or liberators, or ESFs. You should and actively are punished for dying quickly in those vehicles.

OK fine, but i have to ask, why is it wrong to dedicate to vehicle play, but perfectly fine to dedicate yourself to infantry play?
Dont you think thats perhaps maybe a little biased, and also a little hypocritical?
This is a combined arms game afterall, its not advertised as 'infantry with 1 or 2 support vehicles' its advertised is 'massive combined arms warfare'.

I love how you say its a multi role game, and tell people to suck it up when they cant play their preferred style, yet in the same light admit to being a 'infantry main' who doesnt use vehicles.....classic.

This.

When I log into the game the first thing I do is to look for "appropriate" battle. Appropriate in my book means most carnage/certs/action mainly. If we defend or capture a base during the battle, this is just "colleteral" to me..

I don´t care if we are on the attacking or defending side.
I don´t care if attacking or defending leads to strategical advantage on the map overall.
I don´t care if we take or lose a base.
I don´t care if we or some other faction locks some continent.

Reason: There is just no weight at all to any of these factors (as Luminari said, it is not worth any effort)
After replacing the continent bonus with the new ones (which seem utterly useless to me), there is practically no weight at all on capturing a continent

Nope - saying not everyone wants to drive tanks does not imply they're wrong to only want to drive tanks any more than saying I only want to play infantry implies I'm wrong to only play infantry.

The new continent bonuses are utter shait! I hate em to the core of my bones!

The most important thing about continent lock vehicle bonuses was that TR and NC had em! The vehicle/airvehicle farm was off the scales! Now it's a thing of the past.......

If vehicle nanite costs are adjusted so that the majority of even remotely competent vehicle users can chain pull them indefinitely again, effectively making them free (again), then 1. The skill of very high level vehicle players will have less value as they will no longer be more capable of staying in their vehicles than the average plebe, and 2. It will likely result in more ******** from infantry players. You have to remember that if something can be abused, IT WILL BE ABUSED. If people can infinitely chainpull AI harassers (which they do, and with impunity because of the stupid ratio of cost/survivability for harassers), they will. This can be observed in pretty much every live build of the game all the way back to when Harassers were added.

If they adjust nanite costs so that every incompetent sh*tter can chainpull HE MBTs indefinitely, what do you think will happen?

The same goes for A2G and AP gank squads etc etc.

Vehicles are currently balanced as force multipliers - that is, they make you stronger. If the element of scarcity is to be removed, then the inherent boost to combat effectiveness will also have to be removed.

With all that said, the current nanite costs could certainly use some adjustment. Swapping the cost of Lightnings and Harassers, for one, would go a long way toward creating a more balanced feel for ground play.

Another option which is occasionally brought up, and which I wholeheartedly endorse, is the reintroduction of vehicle pull cooldowns, for everything bigger than a Flash. This could coincide with a reduction in cost for vehicles to encourage more use of equipment, and more variety in pulls.



TL;DR:

Vehicle play has to reward skill in some way, and currently that way is that you don't have to ever hop out of your vehicle if you are skilled enough to survive. Nanite costs can be reduced across the board, but with the caveat that significant vehicle repull timers would have to be reintroduced.

@OP:

If you're bad enough that you can run out of nanites on three whole characters, then perhaps it might benefit you to git gud? There is a requirement of skill to be involved in continuous vehicle play, and you shouldn't necessarily be granted an exception to that requirement simply because you couldn't be bothered to improve your play. The current skill floor for vehicle play is honestly pretty low, especially compared to the old days when there repull cooldowns.

Because I know you totally care, here's my opinion:

It's less about having all your eggs in one basket and more about playing in a permanent state of power-multiplier. In my opinion it is just as bad as playing "snowball fight" with frags all of the time, and it would be even worse to use C4 as a primary weapon for more than a few short minutes every hour's worth of gameplay. (To say nothing of the cheese factor...)

Personally, I might as well not even have a nanite cap because I literally never run out of resources. I usually use at least one consumable per life, be it a Native Auraxian medicine stick, a bouncy-flusher, a shield-be-gone aerosol can, a stack of pizzas or even a brick or two of overpowered.

They provide a surprising amount of power for a consumable, and are extremely abusable. It really doesn't make too huge 'a difference if someone is chugging medkits like a l33t MLG Pro or if they're chain-pulling harassers. 'Round the clock force-multiplying isn't something that should be encouraged, let alone made easier by the work of others. (I.E., continent bonuses.)

I agree with your post, but this line in particular gave me a hearty chuckle. So thanks for that.

There should be significant penalties for losing territory, and significant bonuses for gaining territory.

Yeah that's great advice when you're outpopped. To further case-in-point your dumbassery: if all factions can chain-pull harassers then the balance issue doesn't exist. That's all I have to say in response to your idiocy.

Here's the bottom line, repeated for those with limited comprehension skills:
When the game is no longer FUN TO PLAY. People will stop playing. Then who do you have to shoot at?

Case in point: I just logged out as I ran out of nanites trying to support my team with AMS while being overpopped. I've already "got gud" so now what? I'll tell you what. I'm going to play something else.

Market share is what Daybreak should be caring about. Balance is a non-issue.

Vehicles are at times very fragile depending on the circumstances. I've had them instantly blow up just because someone hasn't moved from the spawn pad. In addition, you cannot swap weapon types at the vehicle terms like you could in PS1. That would be a useful feature, players wouldn't need to pull the same vehicle again just to swap weapons.

The only vehicle that could swap weapons in PS1 was a BFR. All other vehicles in PS1 had 1 weapon system and 1 weapon only. Some had multiple gunner seats but you couldn't change said weapons. A Prowler had a 100mm canon and a 15mm top rotary and that was it. A harasser had an AI 12mm rotary and nothing more. If you wanted an AV buggy you had to cert and pull a Marauder/Enforcer/Thresher or the Skyguard buggy for AA. Vehicles were one trick ponies and lead to a lot more variety.

Hell a Sunderer in PS1 had 6 gunner seats.

Continents need a more significant bonus. In PS1 the bonuses each were the same as Base Benefits.not allowed you to make up for not having certain base types on a continent. The only continent with a unique bonus was Cyssor which gave a 10% boost to Armor on all vehicles.

I saw the title of the thread and thought "omg I am not alone", liked your post, and was getting ready to bump it for you (which I'm doing now inadvertedly) until I actually read your post....

You want the vehicle discounts back so you can play with vehicles on whatever faction has the discount?

Man ....; there are so many reasons why we could suggest that they bring the buffs back that are more meaningful than that.....

There is an easy way to not have to wait for nanites ever. Subscribe to the game. I have been a subscriber for the last couple years and I love it.

48 certs when you login
500 Daybreak Cash every month
never run out of nanites unless you chain pull Maxes
bonus exp all the time

They usually have a 1 year membership sale a couple times a year. I decided to support the game I love and I don't regret it.

I had the motivation to help NC as much as possible before, because the perks actually had influence on the battlefield.
Since the patch i also don't really give a ... about the continent locks.
I'm amazed that they didn't also kill the Esamir Techplant bonus lol
This game is becoming more and more a dumbed down 3 team deathmatch.
Kinda sad to see, but what exacly can you expect from a dev team that doesn't fixes bugs anymore and just breaks everything when they release an "update".

Says who? You?
Wow, this 'force multiplier' excuse is reaching the limits of lame.
Stop resorting to it.
Its not 'force multipliers' its a threat you have to deal with or suffer the consequence.
Its part of the enemy force, stop comparing yourself 1v1 to the opposition.

If you want to compare yourself 1v1 to each and every other player on the game, and have equal chance, get exact same loadout as them, same vehicle, same gun, same armour upgrades, same zoom, same chassis.
Then youll be able to have your covented 'fair' 1v1. Which isnt actualy fair its heavily biased towards the person with better aiming skill and heavily weighted against players with the ability to plan, to think ahead of the moment and prepare themselves to correctly deal with the enemy.

This nonsense needs to stop, this isnt 1v1side, it isnt some duel simulator for ESFs, its isnt infantry only, or WOT or any other game you can think of.
Stop bringing preconceived notions into the game, play it, learnt it, deal with it.

Is this how you justify loosing is it?
Well the enemy had 'force multipliers'.
/shakes head.....

Says competitive game balance. If one can easily sit in a position of raw power over other players just because they spent some nanites, the balance is flawed. Additionally, the fact that there is a resource system in place and that it was revamped to be universal rather than based on the three domains speaks for itself. Force-multipliers are not free, and therefore are not meant to be had 100% of the time.

Again, before you jump down my throat with hostility to a differing opinion/defence of your love of vehicles, this applies to everything and everyone.

Heh, right. OK, give me a unique heavy shield that absorbs one nanite for every fifty points of damage. Watch me laugh as I burn down the world around me, and then tell me that my force-multiplier had nothing to do with it.

I have not said anything about 1v1s at all in this thread. I have not once mentioned anything about combined arms. I have not even used the word "fair." Please leave your salty, preconceived notions at the door.

Generally I justify loss on the fact that my team is full of returds, but the enemy team had slightly more returds so we lost due to a numerical advantage. That, or the enemy abused the ever-loving $h!t out of force multipliers.

So someone plays and dies 37 dies with a main-battle-tank, with them just pulling another after another...
What is the point to blowing them up exactly? So they re-spawn as a tank endlessly?
Get out of a base, destroy a MBT from the same guy thrice, twice, well they'll just respawn as a tank as who'd use infantry?
Pull your own? Further back I'd hope, and do this endless, till the people who aren't playing tank simulator cap the base?

Why bother not ramming up as close as possible for kills, when there is no delay, no cost to loss of a tank?
Why exactly are they as strong as they are, if there is no price attached? If there isn't one, why bother with anything inferior.
Why bother with a heavy if You can get a MBT or ESF every single time you die, regardless if it was 5 seconds ago 16 times in a row.

If there is no price, no risk, people just spam the vehicles without care for anything, not death, not enemy fire, no thought.
Any destruction of these vehicles is rendered useless, due to the singular operators not even having to worry about loss of access due to excessive number of deaths.

Chuck enough C-4 or Grenades, and you're out of nanites.
Now imagine if you could throw grenades all day, as many as you'd want.
Can you think of a more effective kill streak, if they cost nothing? just lob, and not give 2 *****.

Now picture a MBT, that even if you kill, the same operator will have it back without even a delay or cost to any recklessness they had.
If you want to be able to be in a tank 24/7 go play a tank simulator.
As either you can't handle not being reckless, or you just want to slaughter everything while being reckless.

You lost a tank - use your resources better, and it won't happen as often.