Balance Pass Post 2: Nanoweave and Related Features

I agree, it is "not fun to die to something I have no chance of recovering from other than picking somewhere else." But my reaction time is so poor, I often can't even do a 180 to see who's shooting me in the back before I die, and that's with full Nanoweave.

Games are polarizing, and personal ultimatums have that ring of defeatism and petulance that inspires ridicule, so I'm loathe to make one myself. But I already haven't been playing infantry for the last few months for the same reason. Without some way for older players to have a balancing action against those of you with a keen nervous system and high-performing short twitch muscles (such as Nanoweave preventing most OHK sniper head shots), I'm not sure I'll bother playing outside of a vehicle when this hits.

Here are my thoughts towards this absurdity.

• You have buffed quickscoping, which is essentially a shotgun at range.
• You have alienated the long range sniping community.
• Your concept of what balances sniping is flawed and based upon new age games where sniping equates to quickscoping and trick shots. Try actual traditional games, like Delta Force: Land Warrior...with maps a great deal like Planetside 2 in size and style.

Those of you who claim that long ranged snipers don't perform any function for their faction...

• Read the thread here to see why you're wrong.
• Furthermore, the population in this game is already low; now an entire group of players are alienated because the only playing style that didn't focus around twitch based mechanics is being removed due to frustration.

What about Flak Armor - what happened to their direct damage protection from explosive rounds? Its a much needed change for Flak Armor - please don't throw this change out while you go crazy with Nanoweave. Make Flak a more viable alternative still.

When sniping tanks it takes more than one hit, kind of like using a sniper rifle against infantry....

I've barely touched the sniper class since the tech test, but capping them at 150m seems ridiculous. I die to headshots all the time. Even headshots from shotguns for gods sake, that's ridiculous. But bolt action snipers? From more than 150m away? Maybe 1% of the time. Prox mines are far more frustrating to me than that, and those really take no skill at all to use.

Classic assumption fail. I said nothing about sniper rifles. The fact is most of the rest of the VS weapons have no drop until 200m. If snipers are nerfed to 150m, something doesn't sit right with me. The 200m technology magic is too far for this capabilities of this game at present.

My next objection is that this change affect heavies far more than other classes.

Heavies are supposed to be the infantry killer class. Without headshot protection, the heavy shield becomes even worse. Getting headshots on heavies is already very easy due to how slow heavies are when the shield is activated.

"Every VS gun" includes sniper rifles, so yes, you said it.

Oh, so you're going to fix AV turrets being able to hit vehicles from outside of render distance then, right?

...

On the contrary. During the few times I do choose to play with a platoon, when I lead I usually play as an infiltrator, sit in a nice overwatch position and direct the battle from there in real time. I'm able to use the zoomed minimap for a good real time tactical map and coordinate an entire platoon against the enemy, all while providing real time intel and updates on exact enemy troop movements, force compositions and other key info that is critical to winning a battle.

I only wish that PS2 had a cloak that could remain invisible permanently instead of me having to worry about being found by some random enemy infil or whatnot.

Please don't remove OHK sniper headshots at range from the game. I don't typically snipe but my friend is a dedicated sniper and if the OHK headshots at range go, he goes. It took me months before I could even get him to try the game out, and even though he doesn't like the nanoweave countering his OHK headshots, he can live with it because enough people do not have nanoweave to give him ample targets.

I understand that dying to a sniper can be frustrating, but can easily be avoided by keeping in motion. Also, contrary to what the dev posted, snipers are easily found. If you die to a sniper, all you need to do is respawn and keep and eye on the most common sniper nests, eventually he will fire again and then you will have a nice laser pointer to their position, after which you can hop in a reaver or spawn a LA and murder them. Or counter snipe them which is infinitely easier because as you know, snipers don't like to move much and are easily headshotted.

I would also suggest making some other suit modification protect against OHK sniper shots at range(Can't make it too easy for him). Perhaps the underutilized and underwhelming Advanced Shield Capacitor? Maybe give it damage resistance but only while the shield is completely full? That way it will only protect against sudden catastrophic damage from OHK'ing you (ie: sniper headshots) but would be irrelevant for any other situation(and you should only make it effective against small arms). Plus, as long as there is SOME counter to OHK headshots at range then no one can complain about being OHK headshotted. They simply didn't choose the right suit modification to protect against it, and that would entirely be their fault.

Im really unsure about this one:
Having a definate 100% headshot up to a certain range is a step up from what we snipers had previously; having no way to tell if a player would survive a headshot (and more than likey escape) or not was terrible design, we might as well have been rolling a dice each time, 1-3 you get a kill, 4-6 better luck next shot.

I will at least now be able to determine by my own actions if i will land a headshot rather than it being down to lady fate.

On the other hand the 150m limitation baffling to say the least, longer ranged headshots require more skill to pull off especially on moving targets, some of us like the challenge of actually landing shots like that from range.

"360° one-shot kill with unlimited range against all other players" statement is a misnomer, firstly terrain does actually limit our options, standing out in the open is a good way to get your own head shot off/shelled/bombed, then we have bullet drop and travel time on top of our asthmatic lungs to consider.

The cloak in my opinion is becoming more and more of a hindrance than an aid, sure it conceals us from sight but we have limited duration and that faction specific SFX actually gives us away from up to 100m, i cant count the number of enemy infils i have murdered because they gave their position away with that daft sfx.

Right now i just wish they would split the class into sniper and infil that way we would get classes that play to their strengths rather than this amalgamation that has to compromise in such a fashion.

It worries me that the man running the show has quite clearly shown is dislike for our class on more than on occasion, with this latest tweek i cant help but think his personal distaste has had a hand in this latest 'compromise'.

https://twitter.com/mhigby/status/400058098447949824

Well it's coming in the infiltrator update, Hunter cloaking no primary weapon but permanent stealth.

GJ soe. Now you only need to remove vehicles and make it impossible to go outside of bases and you'll have the COD killer you've always wanted.

Copy pasted from the Infiltrator forums:

There is no bloody way this garbage idea will go live, hard cap? really? Are you doing to give people their station cash/certs back for their bolt action rifles + 12 times scope? Whats the point of them now? If it goes live it will decimate the play style of MANY people including me.

They need to put more thought into it, provide more cover at spawn points you can cert into.. Like a protective bubble shield for a deployed AMS sunderer that stops small arms fire. How about some helpful tips based on what type of weapon killed you.. if you are killed by a bolt action headshot for example it may display on the death screen:

1) "Snipers have a hard time shooting you while moving, try not to stand stationary for too long !"
2) "Attempt to use cover when under sniper fire"
3) "Getting a spot on a sniper can help team mates in air and land vehicles deal with that pesky sniper nest !"

Instead of dumbing the game down and ruining the play style of MANY people they should actively try and help the people who are being frustrated because they keep getting OHK'ed while standing still/being stupid. Its not a problem with us.. Stop trying to make excuses about Planetside 2 being 'different'. If you stand still in the open there are a million things that can kill you.. How about liberators? reavers? MBT's? AV turrets?

Why all this hate against snipers? All those things are equally frustrating to die against..

I also think tank shells and aircraft weapons should not OHK infantry unless they are within 150m.

I mean, getting killed by a weapon over from 150m away just isn't fun.

I was really expecting that to be the end of the explanation as to why the system is how it currently is, and why it should never change. This is Planetside, not a typical FPS game.

But we need limiters now? Are there really that many people getting 1 hit kill head shots from 150+ meters on a moving target?

Because doing that is quite an incredible feat...it's not common in my opinion. So doing this falls directly under the "Nerf the Skill" category

Doing it on a stationary target is not hard. If you're not moving and out in the open, you chose to put yourself at risk. People do this all the time and they deserve to die by it every time.

I was THIS >< close to being excited for the Performance patch..... godamnitsoe...

All I do is Snipe, all I use is the Longshot, all I see is a high magnification.

They refund certs for Nanoweave but don't do **** for Infiltrators with a game changer like this? Seriously.....

I'm still shocked, this is unfukingbelievable. They just eliminated the long infantry game. Sure we can still kill over 150 meters. But it will always be 2 shots, they removed the possibility of a reward for higher skill. You miss, you don't kill. You kill, it's gonna be 2 shots...

This (the distance cap on headshot kills) is a really bad change. The number of deaths you suffer from headshots from bolt-action rifles from more than 150m away (before this change) is very small, even if you're dopey like me and stand still in exposed places. 14% of my recent deaths are sniper rifle headshots (I was defending Scarred Mesa and standing on the landing pad a lot ...), but I'm sure some of those were from closer than 150m.

Running into a MAX as infantry is far more annoying, to be honest. Or getting lolpodded, OHKd by a tank shell and a whole bunch of other cheap ways to die. At least there are simple countermeasures that vastly decrease your chance of being headshotted by a sniper.

Taking away OHK at that range means taking away the kill, someone 150+m away can almost certainly duck behind cover, get healed, start moving erratically, cloak etc when they realise they are in a danger zone. This change basically completely removes long range (by PS2 standards) sniping from the game and that will undoubtedly cause some people to leave, a cost completely out of proportion to the annoyance that is removed by not being able to be the recipient of a long range OHK any more.

Reminder that in the current state of the game, NW5 blocks OHK headshots at a range much lower than 150 meters. Yet somehow plenty of good snipers manage to cope with that.