A question to the playerbase

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Cougarbrit, Mar 27, 2013.

  1. Cougarbrit

    Who here has the opinion that the new weapons in the game consistently worsen gameplay in general, and especially decrease the enjoyment of those who do not buy/grind the new weapons?

    Sounds a bit whiney I know, but this is a serious question I have, not rhetorical.

    Some examples, I only joined the game properly in January so I'm a bit hazy on what's officially regarded as the first new weapon, but here I go regardless:

    Annihilator - Extremely unpopular to the point it led to a complete rework of lockon mechanics and was quite heavily nerfed.

    SMGs - Unpopular with pretty much everyone but infiltrators due to their low TTKs, plenty of whine about them but they've been surpassed by an even greater source of whine.

    Pump-Actions - Extremely unpopular with many, replacing all the whine over SMGs with the new OHK wonder, which led to widespread use of shotguns in general for many to remain competitive in CQC.

    ESLs - The current sources of whine, from the underpowered Lancer that will be extremely hard to balance in the right way for a game of these low TTKs, to the Striker which is arguably a direct upgrade of the Anniliator, to the Phoenix that now OHKs infantry and ESFs and is generally used from complete or at least relative safety to snipe targets from behind cover with little chance of retalitation.

    I'll give my opinion in the next post, and I encourage you to ignore it until you've developed your own answer.
    • Up x 2
  2. Cougarbrit

    I believe that pretty much every new addition to the game in the weapons department has decreased my personal enjoyment of the game, and have made gameplay less competitive in terms of skill and tactics.

    I think every addition was made with good intention to either balance then-present problems, or increase the variety of gameplay and choices available to the players, but they've come with simply more problems to deal with and balance, and more sources of frustration for the common player.

    Some of these weapons I simply think have no place in this game in any form, such as pump actions shotguns and the ESLs (I don't care if they were in PS1, it's a very different style of gameplay now), and some I feel have improved certain things, but perhaps went a little overboard, such as the SMGs.
  3. VanuSovereignty

    The Lancer is actually pretty easy to balance. Leave the charge up and damage the same, reduce the CoF to 0, remove the range cap, remove the damage dropoff, and drastically increase the time you can hold the charge.

    There, you have a pinpoint accurate weapon that has a long time to get maximum reward and is great in teams, just like the other two launchers!

    Pump actions could do with a bit of a range nerf, and everyone who complained about SMGs really needs to learn that the weapons are seriously inferior to pretty much every other full-auto close quarters weapon.

    The annihilator was mostly broken because you could fire from beyond render range.

    Edit: The first set of weapons released (Razor, Serpent, Jaguar) were all really well balanced and good sidegrades.
  4. smokemaker

    Love the new weapons.
    Now make more for ESF's
    want bombs
    want AT missiles
    want deploy able mine fields
    etc etc
  5. SgtBreastroker

    I like the new weapons adding more variety to the game however I don't like SoE listening to these people who are unable to understand that overused =/= overpowered.
  6. AshOck

    It's really all just a matter of attitude. I welcome any diversity added to the game and look forward to adapting my play style to
    whatever changes are made. I fully expect all new weapons to be unbalanced at first and undergo changes later on.

    Do I ever get frustrated with certain changes/additions? sure... until I adapt my play style and everything is fine again.
    • Up x 1
  7. HadesR

    New weapon's are fine .. But anni, shoguns , launchers in general could all have been balanced differently .. but it's a F2P game so sadly they need to sell strong weapons to earn the $
  8. Devrailis

    There needs to be less weapons and more abilities. Right now many people feel the factions are very shallow in difference because we're just getting guns. the SMGs and Shotguns don't differentiate the factions, the rocket launchers are unbalanced.

    Lets get some faction-class specific abilities for the Heavies, infils, and engies.

    Also, you'll have to put some of the weapon changes in context. The annihilator got out of hand because of vehicles, it had very little to do with infantry to infantry balance the way shotguns and the ESRL do. You had a 2 month stretch from November to the very end of December where ESF lolpods and Libs were pretty much single-handedly shutting down up to squad-level fights just by showing up and left-clicking.

    Much of the annihilator spam was partly in response to that. Actually, the most common response the flyboys had for that period was "learn to use AA counters", and once people farmed up the 1k certs for their annies and started shooting back, well, the farm started drying up for the fliers and there was a massive wave of QQ about it. Even though the annihilator has been nerf-batted to oblivion, the rest of the Air and AA adjustments have made ground-to-air much more balanced than it was for PS2`s first 2 months.

    SMGs actually fill a niche that infiltrators were sorely lacking, which was a CQC option. I think people realized that even with a CQC option like an SMG, it still isn`t enough to make infils feel like infils. Infiltrators lack utility, plain and simple, and giving them the option to gib people at point-blank isn`t going to make them more useful, it just turns them into less effective LAs.

    As for the pump-action shotguns, while people complain about their insta-gib nature, many people are also correct in pointing out that it is very difficult to balance them. They're weapons that are either useful because they insta-gib you, or they become useless because they can't. They should never have been released in the first place.

    ESRLs: I can't say much about the Lancer, it really needs a buff. I've been shot at a few times by the things and they've tickled me at best. I fear decimators far more than the lancers.

    Strikers? I rarely ever use vehicles, so I have no opinion about them. Annie 2.0 from what I gather.

    Nix launcher? Nerf the infantry damage. Seriously, watching 6/7 NC heavies just spam them at people who I know have no idea what is killing them, that can't be fun for low level TR/VS players. Also, those nix spammers seem to TK other NC players like crazy. In any case, the Nix launcher is NOT working as intended, as it was meant to be an advanced AV option, not a noob farm tube.
    • Up x 1
  9. DROP

    Yup they keep adding more crap in before fixing what is already in the game. But adding in a new OP weapon with a lower TTK or brining easy kills will bring them more money.
  10. GTGD

    SOE has a magical power that makes every patch even worse than the one before. This game has gone downhill since tech test.
  11. Cl1mh4224rd

    Other than the novelty, why would they be overused if they didn't provide a clear advantage over all other options?