TTK, do people here really think it's too low?

I think its perfect as is. It means you need to pay attention to cover, and allows infantry weapons to have some effectiveness at distance. Longer TTK makes it much more difficult for infantry to kill each other at range, forcing infantry fights to be point blank bunnyhopping affairs. Their are plenty of those games out there. Let's not try to turn this game into one.

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People talk about longer ttk making things more objective based and adding to team play. I think it would have the opposite effect. As things stand, running around in the open will get you killed quickly. Good fights for outposts often end up with guys holed up in buildings near the control point, shooting out of windows and doors with medics healing and rezzing and engineers supplying ammo and droping mines at the doors. Good defenders can kill the attackers before they make it into the building to clean them out, bad defenders will let some get close enough to get a few grenades in through the doors and windows - with predictable results, or get on the control point long enough to flip it. Good defenders can hold this for a while as long as they protect the medics and engineers. If the medics die then attrition sets in and eventually the defenders run out of warm bodies. If the engineers get killed, eventually the defenders run out of ammo. I have been in plenty of these situations, both as an attacker and a defender, and it rate up there with some of the most fun I have had in an online game. You have teamwork and objective based play. There are ways to counter this, with superior numbers, teamwork, etc. All around a good time in my opinion. With a high ttk, this kind of thing wouldn't really happen. Attackers just run for the building, get inside, then the usual bunny hop - circle strafe - full auto dueling starts where individual skill far outweighs any need for teamwork or strategy.

TLDR: Short TTK means teamwork and strategy have as much impact as individual skill. Long TTK means individual dueling skill outweigh any need for teamwork or strategy.

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Higher TTK would promote stalemates. While the battles would go on for longer, it would be for all the wrong reasons. More defensible areas is the way to make infantry last longer.

The TTK would be fine (or a bit too high) in a conventional FPS, just as instagib grenades are fine. You only have four-five people shooting at you at once, max, and can maybe only see a dozen, and you'll have two or three clustered together at any given point where you can smear them with a grenade.

In a MASSIVE online FPS, where you can see FIFTY people at once and perhaps half of them are trying to kill you in some way, time to kill becomes almost instantaneous. Tank/Lib spam outside, grenade spam inside. Instadeath everywhere, all the time. That ain't fun. Most of the time I don't even have a chance to turn and SEE who's killing me, much less overcharge my HA armor or draw a bead on him or anything else.

I think a slight increase to TTK for infantry all the way across the board, along with a serious nerf -- like 50% -- for any HE weapon except C4 would be helpful. SnIpers who boom headshot you have skill and daring and should be rewarded. Somebody that sneaks or bounces up and unloads a bunch of C4 in your lap? Likewise. But those should be the sole exceptions.

I favor fast TTK.
It punishes the lazy and foolish.

I'd prefer lower but what we have is acceptable.

Honest question: Do those among you who favor the TTK we have now -- and I'me guessing you have above-average rigs and above-average expertise -- think that reducing the effectiveness of HE versus infantry would harm gameplay?

I think removing HE shells from tanks would go a long way towards encouraging them to fulfill an anti-vehicle role. If you can't slaughter infantry with HEAT, you're terrible.

Stop brining real world ttk as an argument. We have red and blue camos + people wearing purple combat latex suits. Realism? MKEY

Low ttk is all about cattering to the Cod/BF3 crowd and still game is not very popular.

I'd like to see TTK balanced for large scale infantry, as opposed to 1v1. Right now, it feels like the name of the game is spray and pray in any kind of large scale assaults. Watching 50 people toss grenades, shoot in the general area, and line up waiting for their turn to die is pretty demoralizing. There's really no skill, just who has the most players sending lead/plasma down field. That doesn't scream "skill" to me.

Since this game is (ideally) massive combat, I think the TTK is a bit off. 1v1 I'd say it's about perfect, but how often does (should) that really happen?

I just get the feeling that people are basing the ideals on spawn door camping, and sundy farming, or catching that lone wolf trying to back hack, rather than the massive combat the game SHOULD be having (and isn't due to other non-TTK issues that I'm not going into so as not to derail the topic).

Lower TTK = Rewarding spray and pray - run and gun - objective became worthless
Higher TTK= Rewarding teamwork - eliminated all from above.

HE should have a drastically lower radius, or should not instagib, one of the two. The tank driver already has mega armor, they don't need an EZMode splash cannon as well. For that matter, grenades should also be toned down substantially to not be the handheld nukes we have now.

With all that said: TTK right now is fine. Close ranges are supposed to be quick and brutal. Trying to use Medium Assault weapons (the assault rifles) in Planetside 1 was an exercise in frustration and futility with the enormous amount of shots it took to kill someone in Rexo at longer ranges. Now you only need to land six or seven shots, which at longer distances (you know, the ones that really require those 3.4x and above scopes we have in the game for ARs and Carbines) takes a considerable amount of skill to land on moving targets and gives someone plenty of time to get out of the way and find cover.

I encourage people that think that this is "spray and pray" to go back and play Planetside 1 for a while. Let me know when you get tired of people camping doors and spraying blindly every time they open up, and tell me what you see people doing with HA at interior ranges.

I think you're wrong.

Many people played planetsdie 1.

The things that people appear to credit short ttk's were all present in PS1. Teamwork was definitely king, more so than any other factor. And tactics such as flanking, ambush, movement, situation awareness were arguably more important than in ps2 where incidental encounters are more prevalent because everyone is always on the move.

In addition, the longer ttk provides more differentialtion between the weapons. Jackhammer had the shortest ttk but only at close range, followed by lasher, followed by mcg. But mcg was better at a longer range with lasher best at intermediate. This meant different tactics were needed by the different empires.

In ps1 kills felt more satisfying. PS2, they're simply see, shoot, kill.

I recall in PS1 coming to a corridor and knowing that there was an NC up ahead hiding, so I hid and waiting. I knew he knew I was there. I knew that if I advanced up the corridor he would have me and he knew the same for me. So I waited and he waited, I waited for him to make a mistake and he did likewise. We waited for a few tense moments and then he walked away, a draw. Now that might sound boring to some, epecially if all you want to do is run/shoot/run/shoot but it didn't feel boring at the time.

That other person was kontramurka if anyone recalls him.

Problem with this is that you'd know the NC was humping a corner with a jackhammer, so you'd throw a grenade (plasma for extra rage). It wouldn't kill him, because players had so much health relatively speaking (hence the longer TTK), so he'd just run to the next corner, whip out his med app and engineer tool to get back to full health, and this process would repeat, corner after corner after corner. It was a dull, slow, boring slog that had nothing to do with skill.

The speed of kills in the game doesn't control how 'skill-based' the gameplay is, not on its own. It involves other factors as well.

It could happen as you describe but it couldn't be described as slow, slower than a simple rush I'd agree, but you're looking at someone here who thinks that Test Cricket is the finest sport there is (a Test Cricket match lasts 5 days if you didn't know).

I also think the 'nothing to do with skill' part is arguable too. Some people were very good at this kind of thing and some very bad and some people in the middle, I'd say skill or playing smart was the difference.

TTK in this game is about right. It leaves room for the developers to add new armor, abilities, and utilities in the future. I like how this game's TTK is about like the modern current FPS games like BF3....except this game gives you abilities that prolong your life, such as heavy assault shield, flak armor, instant med kit, light assault jetpacks, infiltrator cloaking, MAX suit, character flinching which believe it or not prolong TTK, etc..

So on the surface, shooting at someone AFK may seem like this game's TTK is like other modern FPS games out there. But against a decent FPS player who uses all that's available to them, TTK can be prolonged, and at time deaths can be avoided if you played your cards right.

The only things throwing the balance off whack are the air superiority and base design.

Imo HE rounds are about right vs. infantry. a slight decrease in splash damage wouldn't hurt though. problem is that HE rounds are way too effective vs. armor. if there was a more serious tradeoff for having so much anti-infantry stopping power, it'd be perfectly fine from my pov.

edit: @ the above poster:
PS2 ttk is actually nowhere near the avarage BF3 ttk. let alone the avarage CoD ttk. BF3 goes from 4 to 5 bullets to kill in most situations. for some weapons even 3 (not even counting headshots). in CoD it's about 3-4 bullets to kill (again not counting headshots). and that said, both games offer weapons with insane rof. 900-1000+ rpm is common practice. not to mention hardcore mode where you run with up to -40%HP by default, which means a 3 shot kill at almost any range in BF3 and a 2 shot kill at almost any range in CoD.

I played planetside 1 from beta to BFR's. Trying to kill someone at a distance with a planetside 1 assault rifle was pointless. Typical infantry fights, in my experience, were guys in agile armor, with surge implants bouncing around with jackhammers, lashers, and MCGs- I was one of the guys with the MCG unless I felt like grabbing a jackhammer off of some NC guys corpse. Post surge nerf, it just fell back to rexo armor with the same weapons. Want to run across an open field with no cover? No problem, if that guy on the wall starts shooting at me I will just stop, have a smoke, calm my self down, maybe smoke another cigarette since i have a medpack on me, and then jog to cover. Infantry fights were atleast entertaining in the base interiors because everyone was crammed into a small space where heavy weapons could actually kill someone in a reasonable amount of time.

Don't get me wrong, I miss the bases, ant runs, galaxy drops, but not the long TTK on regular infantry weapons - or the BFRs.

^ This .. Well maybe not the VS part..

A higher TTK would mean all the weapon's would need to be rebalanced again , since any current issues / faction differences would be exaggerated by a longer TTK

I die no matter what the TTK is so I really don't care.

Yea, but 'surgile' was removed in 2003/4 before I started ... aaaand I think you exaggerate a little for effect.

It's true, killing at range was harder but it did happen. I've seen many bad times trying to attack Yazata with NC on the walls owning with the gauss.

Also when sniping there was no osok, 2 shots or 4 shots with the scout rifle and you'd be surprised how many would stand still and allow you to shoot them 4 times, well I was.