As most of us know, the DX11 patch went live with many other changes and....wow. Honestly I might just be stupid for expecting something different from the devs this time, but it seems that the DX11 patch wasn't taken as seriously as it should have and the fact that the huge spike latency and the infinite bugs that have rendered the game nearly unplayable, even for a dedicated Planetstide 2 fan like me, is a testament to how poorly the playtest and addressing the bugs it revealed were carried out by the team. Honesty, I love Planetside 2, and since there is nothing quite like it, I am sadly stuck playing this dying, poorly run and funded game. This is why I was extremely excited when the DX11 patch was announced. Planetside 2 has always suffered from performance and seeing the game upgrade after 6 years really restored some hope in my eyes for this title's future. The promises of increased performance is likely to bring back old players, and even attract new ones who hear they no longer need a million dollar rig to run it. This patch was not only about increasing performance, but also attracting new players. Which is why we asked the devs take their time and try to rebuild Planetside 2 from scratch to make the DX11 patch free of many of the old bugs the game suffers. This is a long and tedios task to rebuild a game from scratch, but it must be done, for the code in Planetside 2 has been abused for so many years, it's surely a soup of overlapping bugs and hidden faults. Building Planetside 2 from the ground up for the DX11 patch would have required tremendous effort and dedication from the devs, but it is a necessary feat in order to remove a large portion of the bugs that flaw the game, that have been introduced in the infinite amount of patches the game has received over the years, and have not been properly addressed. Why ask so much from the dev team? Well; who enjoys bugs? Unless you're a troubled soul, no one enjoys bugs. Sure us Planetside veterans have normalized many of them, in fact we barely react or even notice them anymore. But the new players we need to join the game are not used to such brutally obvious flaws in the game, despite its potential. These players come from games like call of duty, or battlefield, where falling through the map 1/10 times you spawn, or having packet drops when a certain amount of players is online or walking through slow loading walls, hitting invisible obstacles, is not something that they expect to see in a game, and this prevents them from appreciating what Planetside 2 has to offer. This DX11 patch was the chance for a fresh start. Almost like a relaunch for the game, smoothing performance issues and eliminating a majority of the bugs that have pestered Planetside 2 for some time now. This was an opportunity to show both old and new players that Planeside 2 is a fun and finished game to play, while restoring faith in the veteran community that continues to cling on to this title. I can't say I was surprised, but what I feared happened. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the devs spent a lot of time on the update, and in a few weeks, some bugs solved, others covered up, others just return in hiding as the huge spike in players disappears. The problem is they spent a lot of time doing something wrong, which in the end just adds more work for them and further strengthens negative views about the title than had the game been rebuilt from scratch. Sure rebuilding it would've taken more time, but I prefer seeing stuff done once right, then having to go back and fix it countless times because the first time it was completed half-*****, especially when friends and I are funding it. It's like giving your boss 6 cookies when he asked you to bake a dozen, sure you did most of the job, but half of it is missing, and not only are you going to have to redo it, but you've angered your boss. There was no need to rush DX11, after 6 years of playing the game on DX9, it wouldn't have been too much of a bother to wait one or two more years for a new, finished game instead of the usual buggy patches. Its not that there wasn't a playtest or that people didn't show up, it just seems despite this and the numerous bugs found, the devs just decided to release it anyways. This is ok for the average nerf/buff/tweak patches, but this patch was supposed to be Planetside's redemption, and it was amazing to see on the playtest and today that many people are still interested and following this title, ready to try it when they hear it's going to improve. What did those people get? A giant kick to the balls to be polite, with a numerous amount of bugs, lighting problems, movement problems, latency spikes, etc.. that basically made the game unbearable. I have fast internet and a decent rig, and before the patch things ran relatively smoothly. Today, sure i got more frames, but I had to give up after and hour on two because the game was in such a sorry state, it was too difficult to try to play and enjoy the game, and reading the chat I wasn't the only one feeling like this I think. So once again, another huge disappointment. Sure the future patches may fix some problems, but unsolved bugs before DX11 will still exist, and the huge amount of players that came back to Planetside for this patch will likely leave before seeing these fixes after witnessing such a disaster. This was really a big opportunity wasted for Planetside 2, sure Oshur may attack some people back for another day, but if the patches, especially the major ones continue to be released so chaotically, eventually people will give up for good on this title, and for this fear of these failures driving the game to its death, I had revoked my membership a few years back. I really had hope for DX11, but it appears the devs are unable to release a proper patch to re-spark attraction to this game, and validate the veterans that still play it. Unfortunately, I guess it won't be today that I repurchase something in this game. On an ending note, still negative, what annoyed me even more with this patch was the effort I saw spent on trivial things, that shouldn't have been a focus for the devs. The character and loading screens have been changed again, and honestly, I was really angered to boot up the game and be greeted with a PS4 like character loading screen. Most people here play PC because they dislike console games, so manipulating brightness and the interface to make it look more console like was not a welcome change. That and adding new loading screens were really not a priority nor a necessity, and most people in the community were fine with just the continent loading screens with bars from way back. This is not an important change to the game, and I feel like the time and resources spent on redesigned those could have been directed to say, making DX11 the best patch in the history of Planetside or something more valuable than such trivial things. Its like glazing and decorating stick of butter. Before you start to worry about such minute details and diverting time and resources to them, you have to first have the cake. Here the devs further disappointed me, leaving me with non pleasing loading screens after experiencing such awful gameplay from the patch. So....it's to late, but next time, if there is a next major update that sparks attention online, please take your time developers, to ensure the patch is as polished as possible and released in a way that makes Planetside 2 seem like a respectable, finished game, that restores some of the dignity of the veterans that still play it despite all the previous disappointments, and that impresses people outside of the Planetside community in order to attract more players we veterans can farm. It would be great to finally feel like our thoughts have been heard, and the team in charge of Planetside 2 actually cares and is passionate about the game they maintain, or at least do a really good job pretending they are. With this, I leave you to work on solving the countless bugs from the patch, and I suppose I'll be back in a few days to play again, although i'm sure the spike of new players will have been long gone. RIP...
first of thx for the format ... though i don´t think a new thread for it was realy neccesary ... the thing still is that THIS PATCH is fresh ,, and i just expected the bugs and issues to come with it .. and i expect that most of it will be sorted out as time goes ... performancewise i didn´t have too many problems with the occasional fps drop .. i experienced a couple bugs regarding cortium gathering and the use of silos were they required a lot more time to be useable .. a couple effects seem to not appear during cortium gathering ... but that was realy it for me other than that i personaly enjoy the new spawnsystem .. being part of a squad from the beginning is an alright idea, if you don´t like it you can still leave the squad .. so no big thing here .. haven´t tried join combat yet ... refnining event was intresting to say the least and brought a nice focus on vehicle combat ... may need some work though to allow infantry to participate in it better to help vehicles and ANT´s ... but yea so far permormance for me was overall ok .. though there was a clear drop in grafical fidelity, but to me grafics are a seconadary thing anyway ...
This post shows a total lack of comprehension of the quantity of work that goes into game dev. They should have “Just re-built the game from scratch” for DX11? Are you f***ing kidding me? I literally laughed out loud when I read that brilliant suggestion. Even if they did have the manpower to do that (and, realistically, at that point they could just make Planetside 3 instead), where do you think bugs come from in the first place? When PS2 was first released, it was nowhere near bug-free. It’s silly to presume that re-making it again would result in any less of a buggy product. Games are big and complex. They have bugs at release, and those bugs are patched as time goes on. Some of those patches produce new bugs, yes. But the idea that going backwards to 1.0 will somehow magically create a bug-free experience is ludicrous. If that were true, devs would just never patch their games.
They can’t make planetside 3 for sure, but they can make a copy paste Planetside Arena battle royal lol....All they can do is just acquire and ruin.
Maybe it's just me but personally, i'm really liking all the graphical enhancements and the performance is great. Sure there are bugs but i'm having a blast ! (Quite literally - explosions are very meaty now...)
I got some performanc isssue too. FPS drops from 100 to 40 - 45 every second. if i stay or move, in bif fights or small. in big fights it drops havy to 30-35 FPS from 70 funny thing is, DX11 is older than PS2, DX11 released 2008 XD Dunno why we need DX11, 2014 DX12 got released why was not immediately worked on dx12
Think it would be useful to add what your running on if having problems. I have no problems so far on .. So puzzled. i54670K 3.4GZ AMD RX 580 8GB Windows 7 Sp1 16GB RAM 27 inch monitor 350mb connect but poor HUB 3 modem. EC1-A mouse running at 125 polling rate/800DPI. Avast/Mbam. Running at 1600/900 windowed. Can run it at 1920x1080 but I prefer to see desktop. Framerates are fine. Hope this helps in some way. Suspician it's Nvidia card drivers somehow, maybe?
i got a old OC System, but allready ready for DX11 anyway XD i7 4790K @ 4,7 GHz - 1,1V MSI z97 G3 blck oc @ 125MHZ GTX 750TI @ 1411 Mhz with 3000MHz DDr5 - Bios Modded. 16 GB Ram GSkill RJ @ 2133MhZ - 1,5V Windows 10 anyway. should be ready for dx11, not for dx12 ( because of GTX750) but strong enought for DX11 in vull HD (1980*1080)
I think is was because a very large percentage of the ps2 player base do not have DX12 capable hardware and when you consider the resources they have to what it would take to upgrade to DX12 against the benefit to the player base they have now I guess they figured DX11 was the best option. Personally I am getting a very good increase in performance in DX11 over DX9. Personnally I think they should have focused on PS3 instead of working on the arena game and updates for a game with what 2000-3000 players? But this is the choice that was made.
Making Planetside 3 may have been a better move, or relaunching the game at least. Sure the game had bugs at the start, but it's been patched so many times it's impossible to determine where the bugs are coming from. Using what they've learned worked from previous patches in Planetside2, it would have full well been possible to recreate a version of Planetside 2 with less bugs for DX11 from more or less scratch. The devs have the manpower to make planetside arena, they can divert resources to rebuild planetside, taking it apart and understanding what went wrong, how to fix it, etc. Its silly to assume that rebuilding planetside is going to give us a carbon copy of the old game, with the same bugs and all. Throughout its life planetside 2 has just been treated like a 7 year old's messy room. Every time something is just kinda thrown into the game, and when the players ask to clean up the mess, the devs hide it all under the bed. Sure the room looks somewhat nice, but it only takes 5 seconds to realize it's not clean. Planetside 2 is just that. It promises the new players a massive fps mmo - the only one of its kind really, and this is enough to attract some people with minimal advertising. But those people haven't been loyal to planetside since the first days it released, and are not ready to trade such game changing bugs for the potential of having big fights. The DX11 fixed graphics, and it reminded me of how beautiful the game really is. However, it also introduced almost 200 bugs, maybe even more that remain dormant until server pop spikes (like the one in december). Yeah, most games released have bugs. But as you said, those bugs are usually quickly patched. As much as I hate brs, imagine a guy coming from fortnite or apex, starting his first hour of planetside. He's getting farmed by veterans, but he's also falling through the map, spawning 2 vehicles instead of 1, having homing grenades kill him, mines not exploding. There's nothing wrong with a few barely noticeable bugs. But take a few days playing other games then planetside, and you'll see that to an outsider, it's just a chaotic mess. Planetside 2 has never really "fixed" bugs in many cases, they have just found ways to bandage them, hide them, but they are still there, and there's nothing the devs can do because the planetside code is a mess that has been accumulating more and more over 6 years. So yeah, its a bold task to rebuild planetside learning from the mistakes/successes of the infinite amount of patches that have taken place over the years. But it is a necessary action to take if planetside hopes to widen its player base. Look around at all the angry posts of players that came back to check the game after the patch. Those are the people who could've boosted server population, saved the game fora while in a sense. Greeting them with 180fps and 200+ bugs is not a good way to encourage them to stay, especially since they're likely getting farmed by vets. Maybe you should tell them they're ridiculous for asking to get an enjoyable experience and that all games come with bugs. Saying all games come with bugs is like trying to hide sh*t by stuffing it in your eyes. Yeah, every game you play, there's likely bugs or at least were bugs at one point. That changes nothing from the fact that planetside 2 is riddled with an enormous amount of bugs, that never really get fixed. Its a lot of work to transfer the code from DX9 to DX11, and even more work to rebuild the game for DX11. But had the game been rebuilt, it would have been easier to clean up the bugs and understand where they come from, because the mess is gone. Sure copying and pasting was faster, but no one really got to benefit from this. The veterans could've waited for planetside 2 to be rebuilt into DX11, the devs would've had a fresh start and less oportunity to make a mess of Planetside 2 in future patches, and the potential player base just wants a smooth game with little to no noticeable flaws that's fun to play. No one got any of that. It's ridiculous to ask the devs to rebuild planetside 2 from scratch because it takes effort and manpower? How much effort and manpower is it gonna take to solve all the problems caused by this half-baked patch? By that time, the potential playerbase that came to check the game realized it's still a disastrous mess, and the veterans will have to wait a few weeks before the game returns to being truly playable. You can close your eyes and say it's fine for you, successful patch, beautiful job devs, but 95% of the community was disappointed by the patch and says the games barely playable, and a whole lot of people that came to check out the game were shocked at the chaotic mess they found, and left. It sure would've been a lot of work to rebuild planetside 2, deeply investigating the flaws and fixing and organizing the code, but it would've paid off in the long run, and after seeing the disaster of the DX11 patch, only the worst could think this was a better move for the game over rebuilding from scratch.
ps3 would not be a good move ... not this recent .. i don´t see a new planetside being a thing for 7 to 10 years, not even if PS:arena weren´t a thing .... dbg by this point needs to either create something else entirely or something of smaller scale ... which they kinda did with PS:A ... i don´t realy see them creating a ps 2 or everquest scale MMO game anytime soon ...
Again, they probably don't have even 10% of the manpower needed to do this. The people working on the game now are not the same people who built the core functionality of it six years ago. Even if a lot of that team was still around, it's not as simple as "learning from your mistakes". Bugs usually aren't borne of 'mistakes' so much as they are created by unforeseen interactions between different parts of a highly complex game that were made by different people. When you make a big game from scratch, these bugs happen. As a rule. If making a bug-free game were as simple as "learning from your mistakes", then teams that make sequel after sequel, like the Battlefields or Call of Duty franchises, would be releasing completely bug-free games at this point. But they don't, because starting from scratch always means there will be unforeseen bugs. Planetside Arena is the exact opposite of "starting from scratch". It's starting with a functioning game (PS2), and trying to retool it into a new release in a different genre (Battle Royale), while re-using as many assets as possible (The map, the vehicles, the guns, the sound effects, the character models, the animations, the physics system, the networking, the UI, all of the gameplay mechanics, etc.) PSA is more of a special game mode built on top of PS2, than it is a new game. I'm surprised this isn't obvious. Sorry mate, but you're an idiot who is unwilling to listen to logic. Good day.
I would attempt explaining stuff step by step even more clearly, but after seeing you use the word mate, I understand you simply lack the IQ to comprehend anything past the pew pew aspect of planetside, for this reason, you are hereby labelled as a lost cause, and I conclude by wishing you too, a good day.
It would have helped if they ONLY made DX11 changes in this patch, but no, it had a bunch of other **** bundled in making bugs much harder to fix. My guess is they were WAAAAAY behind schedule and had to rush something out the door.
That's entirely correct I believe. It is too much for the devs to focus on releasing multiple things at once, plus this makes it harder to determine what actually caused the bug(s).
