Development Update – Forum Discussion - Nov. 13 2023

The intention to develop is welcome, but I think it would be good to clear the basics before you develop. I think several players have hours of Connect Quality bad/poor Server Connectivity ranges from 3000-29000 and finally disconnects, while the ping ranges from 32-250. These should be cleaned up first and then anything can be developed.

I hope you will strengthen the Construction System, which has become weaker with the release of Fortification. Or I will never return to the game, but I would like to.

Good start! Hope it works out. But if it doesn't you don't have much chances to fix ctc. You have to consider removing it again.

Also just focus on all the problems for the next months! Chat is full of complaints and player rate is dropping! You also have to face that Oshur isn't your best work and maybe consider to redo or cancel it.

Many people think the game is finally dead. You must prove them wrong!

CTF how it is now is good. Making it worse could be bad, but we will see. Release it soon.

Thank you for finally giving us some kind of update.

I don't blame you Mithril for the continued decline of moral in the community, I imagine you've tried to relay the situation to the people upstairs and that your hands have been tied. Corporate interest and sometimes the hierarchy sucks and it far too often interferes with the purpose of your roles namesake. Other times, the community just doesn't see it straight. I get that too.

Thanks for hanging in there with us. You're appreciated, even if you aren't able to deliver the exact news everyone wants.



ANYWHOOOOO...

<insert lofty soggy paragraph devoid of purpose>
TL;DR: Give construction some protein and beef it up please. The builders are getting depressed

Merge Connery and Emerald first to get the player base back to where it should be, or at least allow us to transfer our characters from Connery to Emerald.

The reason the majority have left is due to the latency spiking up in to the 12-14 second range plus the majority of the pop has moved over to Emerald anyway

I agree with some of the above post, I think a priority is addressing the connection to the Planetside 2 Servers and the G15 Error of
not being able to connect.

I don't know about merging of Connery servers, as part of the reason for the majority of the population has moved to Emerald is to get away from a player base that is heavy in exploiting/cheating on the that server. However, I highly support the ability to transfer ones character from the Connery server to Emerald servers. My primary account is a Connery account, but I don't play on Connery due to its lack of players. Based upon my opinion due to higher amount of bad actors on the Connery server.

Fixing Construction is my next request as base can now be destroyed by a single or a few players. Automated turrets and pain fields need to come back and the dark light lights need to be fixed to where enemy infiltrators are illuminated, but faction base infiltrators are NOT illuminated.

Thanks for all you are doing it's greatly appreciated and I this game is still my number one game I play and maybe another suggestion is kick up the Public Relations a bit and try to get more press on how AMAZING this game is. No other game offers the flexibility or choice than Planetside 2. Some days, I build bases, other days I drive Tanks, other days I fly aircraft, the list can go on and on.

Thanks again.

The core physics of Planetside 2 makes it a cut above any other game even to this day.

11-12 years have elapsed and veterans are still willing to put up with horrible developments in spite of it all.

However, now the Connery Server dwindled in population. They are trying to listen?

The lack of attention to details, critical fixes ignored and constant nerfs instead of improvements has cut the veteran fanbase to the bone. In many cases they have had enough. Trying to attract new players won’t work. It’s the veterans that kept this game alive through the darks years. The spenders like myself. I was ecstatic at Doku’s brilliant art works. Get him back!

People are not leaving Connery server because of cheating. That person is dead wrong. They are leaving because the population is dead or too low to have an enjoyable experience.

They need to merge Connery or let us transfer characters. Or that at least should say why they won't or can't do so. But most likely they'll just keep doing what they're doing about it, which is absolutely nothing, and they will continue to lose players from their game who actually want to play their game.

That's all great news, at least we know there is still a development team. Unfortunately, have to agree with the above gentlemen, in sense of adding or modifying in-game content won't address some major issues that had been there for years. Namely:

• The lag ( hit detection bug ): it's just terrible, maybe some see it as a feature, or got used to, maybe it's server dependent. I could never get used to, especially when we have a mix of players with a ping time between 50 and 300. Speaking of Cobalt, the worst thing was of course the merger, now we have all the Chinese, India, South Africa, etc. along with EU and Russia. Obviously these latter ain't no issue, but the former with 200+ ms ping appear as immune to damage in close quarter fights. Probably can't be fixed from server side, but it could be from client side, adding artifical delay on a per client basis, based on the client's ping to server time, to average the global player delay to around 200 ms. It's crap, but if everyone has the same delay, it appears virtually as none. Of course the reaction times will suck, but to that one can get used to.
• The no-deploy zone bug: some times when the load is high and/or the player was in for a long time, all areas appear as no deploy zone for construction. There had been a lot of forum complaints on this already. I've already encountered this at least 4 times since i've started playing again.
• The flickering cloaking field bug: affects both vehicles and the Infiltrator class, it causes the cloaked entity to get revealed from distances it should not. There had been a lot of forum complaints on this already.
• The voice comm bug: some times it just stops working
• The main game audio bug: i encounter this all the time, in large battles the main audio starts to stutter, lose a lot of the sound channels. If i reduce the channel numbers to 96 or 64 or even 48, that fixes the stutter but lose all orientation audio info (not sure how to express this otherwise).
• Unwarranted framerate drops: not the same as "the lag", i encounter this mostly above the Amp station type facilities and globally on Oshur, even when the number of players in those areas is relatively small (like 2 squads or so). Can live with it.
• The ANT's HUD graphs locking up bug: you have to exit and enter the vehicle to make it work. It's minor, low priority, but still it is there and annoying.
• The placement mechanism of construction items is somewhat lame, a tilting option would be welcome. Sometimes one needs to lay the items quick, and minor terrain accidentation here and there requires to move back forths, raise and lower and rotate a lot until figures out the item can't be placed at all...

Looking at the bright side, the game is still one of it's kind, veterans are faithful, there is constantly an extent of population all the time, this is all good. I don't think the game's dieing, not by a long margin.
But then please, try to actually heed the players' feedback, there is a lot of clutter and salt, obviously, but there are real, long ongoing issues that need to be addressed, and with priority, over the usual new content addition, constant nerfing of items and the rewarding system, chat policing, and so on.
The above listed issues along with many others cause frustration in people, some will never come back, i've encountered many times people to voice their unsatisfactory gameplay experience. Monetization efficiency is directly prortional with customer satisfaction, Johnny Sixpack ragequitting with " i won't pay for this lagging crap" on his lip definitely will not acquire boosts or membership subscription, that's for sure.
About the current composition of dev team, if don't have yet will need folk that have aside their professional competence area, also extensive gaming experience, did play PS2 for a while and with passion, like Wrel was. Can't work on it efficiently if you don't know it's issues from within.
Hope that helps.

The CTF change is GREAT and a huge leap back in the right direction!
(Is...is this what hope feels like?!)

But you folks really need to do something about Oshur
from murdering primetime every night, that should be top priority,

I know you don't like to remove content, but oshur was a mistake,
while i would want it removing entirely, at the very least it should either:
automatically trigger a meltdown alert the moment it unlocks so it can only plague us for 1h30m
Or always have another map open along side it.

TLDR
THANK YOU for fixing ctf!
Stop oshur from murdering primetime!

At first focus on fortification, it needs a lot of work, it is terrible and previous building was easier and more fun. Previous bases were great and fun to fight(attack/defend)
Another thing to change is lasher ... no chance to push when 3-5 VS guys are just holding LMB with lasher to doors. Nerf lashers, they need to be overheated more quickly because it is not fun just clicking revive.
Increase capture times. I mean time to take enemy point and time to capture the base. When enemies are zerging it takes some time to friendly allies to jump into the battle. Make some nerf to zerging. It is impossible to defend base where enemies are 75%+
Instant action is not well done. It needs to rework how instant action works. Sometimes drops u into battle where is no fighting or fight is done.
On VR training add moving targets(characters) it would really help to practice and find sensitivity.
Add new special weapons. I mean make the game more fun for veterans like me. Auraxium guns should be better and not almost the same as classic weapons.
More vehicle TOP guns. I play PS2 since 2014 and every year i wish u ll add more vehicles or more vehicle guns. Add new support only vehicle and remove support from sundies. Add vehicle that will by only anti-infantry and supporting friendly vehicles.
Make more gadgets - its 2023 and game has almost same gadgets like in 2015... i woud appreciate healing drone that can be cetified, repair drone, shield drone, and revive drone. Better and smaller auto turrets or auto anti-air turret.


PS2 is loosing players here are some reasons why, from player with 3150+ directive points.
I really hope some of this points u ll implement in PS2 or in future will be present in Planetside 3.
MilanNC

Where Chimera Ability?
And maybe you fix their gravity? Feeling like the tank no weight

maybe a good time to make it official that you will no longer support the playstation version. you owe it to the players

Here are some alterations to the Outfit Wars rule set that I'd like to see considered:

1. remove intentions for inter-faction match-ups (e.g. NC outfit versus NC outfit, TR outfit versus TR outfit),
2. revert to a traditional 48x48x48 war on the Desolation map,
3. reduce the entrant size to 24 members per outfit,
4. add an outfit loyalty rank requirement for individual player entrants, and
5. pair off allied outfits into 48 man teams, 24 members each

And some personal commentary on those points:

First, we have pride for our faction and comradery for other allied outfits. We don't want to fight members of our own faction. These are alliances worth respecting, and there's a way to have allied outfits play with one another in Outfit Wars without putting them on opposing fronts (see #5).

Second, a traditional three way is the bare minimum required to make Outfit Wars representative of actual Planetside game play. Planetside is not fair, and we like it that way. A simplified two faction mirror match sacrifices too much of the chaos and politics that makes Planetside game play unique and compelling.

The third comment aims to acknowledge the reality of the size of the Planetside 2 community these days. It is not what it used to be, admittedly, and the requirements of this season of Outfit Wars creates a burden on outfit leaders that may not have existed in previous years. There's a lot that goes into aligning scheduling for 48 or more members over the holidays, so it's an intimidating commitment even for outfits with active membership that could feasibly pull it off.

The fourth point suggesting a loyalty rank requirement for individuals joining on behalf of an Outfit discourages players from jumping outfits or creating new characters solely to participate. There are ongoing efforts by allied outfits to poach members from one another simply for the purposes of this season of Outfit Wars, which is destructive to the community, creates artificial animosity between outfits, and distressing to outfit leaders. Granted some of the damage in this regard is already done. This needed to be a consideration before you announced the event, but the sooner this amendment to the rules is made and announced, the better.

The last and fifth point is meant primarily to build good will between allied outfits, while also accommodating the 24-per-outfit suggestion by having pairs of outfits jointly fill out a shared platoon. Even in live play, we're relying more heavily these on cooperation with allied outfits over command chat to deal with zerging by conglomerate outfits. Pairing off outfits together in a shared platoon for Outfit Wars would be an interesting twist and excellent test of outfits to lead cooperatively on a large scale with other leaders, including those not within their outfit. This would also be a great way to show to the community that smaller outfits and opening lines of communication with allied players not within your own outfit is healthy for this game and should be encouraged.

I make these comments mostly on the back of reading posts by leadership of a few notable Emerald outfits about their reasoning for opting to not participate. While I don't think you can make everyone happy, I do personally think some changes along these lines would draw far more interest.

Lastly, more than anything, please don't listen to me. Take initiative and reach out to notable outfit leaders for feedback directly. If you want Outfit Wars to be successful and to continue to receive continued support for the game from the community, those are the folks you need to listen to.

Construction turrets are still suffering from wonky movements. They'll just randomly veer upwards or downwards without any inputs. Seems to be affected by being damaged or hit. Also happens when firing.

Infiltrators are still getting the flickering glitch when they leave construction based lighting. The flickering continues even after they leave the lighting.

Edit: It could also originate from being physically hit by rep grenades.

When will a balancing patch come out to make all factions playable ^^ NC weapons are still the best and that makes many "hardcore" player choose them for that reason alone.

Estaría genial la fusión de Cobalt y Miller en un único servidor y que el nombre del mismo se decidiera por una guerra de servidores como se hizo antaño con Miller. Más increible sería que todos lo jugadores Rusos fuera migrados a otro servidor. Quieren saber por que la gente deja de jugar, lo Rusos y las trampas con las que constantemente nos matan, disparos a través del terreno, disparar al frente matándote estando a sus espaldas, destrucción de tanques de un solo disparo............ Esa gente estropea el juego. Lo mejor es que no importa cuantas veces los reportes y los videos que facilites de sus trampas, nunca se toman medidas contra ellos, ¿Estarán protegidos por algún DEV? no repondan está claro que asi es...