Balance Pass Post 2: Nanoweave and Related Features

Interesting, to say the least. I think this will completely change infantry combat, explosives will be less effective since more people will be running flak but also high damage high accurcy weapons will be a lot better, especially good for NC. Time to get better with headshots!

What is NUC?

Wear Flak. Problem solved. The point is, now you have to choose. Die instantly to splash damage? Or die instantly to projectiles? It was horrible game design to include protection from both in one item in the first place.

Hmm, makes the unscoped bolt actions more useful, was already using the ghost for poops and giggle as it was, might be amusing to see more close rangers, alas there are no bayonets to fix.

100% agree, especially regarding the mountain top AV mana turret campers. This change is incredibly overly thought out.

As someone who has been a sniper once (I was bad at it) and been sniped many times, I really don't like the arbitrary OHK distance limit on sniper rifles.

You are correct in that the game doesn't have the usual contrivances for limiting sniper-based play, and there are definitely scenarios where a sniper rifle is just a bad idea in a sandbox game. But this game isn't one of them.

As it stands, there are already some very effective counters to snipers. Being indoors or in a vehicle renders you 100% immune. And the vehicle side renders you 100% immune and you can counterattack.

The other night the group I was running with were fighting around Tarwich. One or two NC snipers had managed to get themselves into some very interesting locations, and were incredibly good shots. They were doing exactly what snipers should be doing: terrorising the ground troops. Not killing them all, but causing enough of a fuss that they created a distraction by making people dead. Specifically, they were gunning for the people they recognised as platoon leaders. The psychological effect was notable over platoon comms.

Removing the OHK nature of a sniper rifle headshot from 150+m really hurts the sniper. After all, it's not like a dead guy can't be picked up again by a medic. And it's not like a sniper can't be counter-sniped.

There are very few places where snipers have 360-OHK capability. The terrain itself doesn't allow for it. Working out where a sniper is and then dealing with the sniper is fun.

Furthermore, getting hit by the sniper round does two things: you get a direction indicator even when you're defeated, and the bullet is visible to other players. And if the sniper misses, he's just given away his position...

The rapid respawn times in this game makes effective sniping harder anyway. Ineffective sniping we see examples of every day.


In general, stop fearing the OHK. This is Planetside2, not Call of Duty. There's hundreds of players in a battle; it's easy enough to be targeted by two, three, five or twenty players at once and go from full health to completely dead in the blink of an eye. In a game of this scale and scope, infantry should expect to be squishy and at risk.

Baby don't hurt me?

Maybe snipers out of range could have non-lethal effect. Getting dizzy like from a concussion grenade.

Mr AV turret would like a word with you

150M is almost 3 time the range you require right now to one shot a NW5. And no, LMG aren't really that much of a danger. You should be ashame of yourself if a LMG got you before you did at that range.

I'm mostly fine with that. I'm curious what they are going to do with the different tier of Bolt action though.

Awesome stuff. This is exactly the solution I was hoping for and then some. I'm glad to see the limit on sniping, since that's a point I've been making for a while now that regardless of the NW solution there should be a limit. I think it's at a good place now, 150m is still a pretty good clip and a generous enough distance to allow OHKs while still affording the shooter the safety of range. 150m is still DOUBLE the current OHK range on a rank 5 user with the high end bolts.

NW not effecting headshots at all now is a pleasant surprise. As a higher aim player I've felt for a while now that the difference between shooting with precision and just drilling a high RoF weapon into an enemies chest wasn't terribly significant and I really feel good about this.

As for nano-weave I'll be happy to invest in it again, because now the boost is not simply to health total but a flat DR. That means it's going from 500 shields and 750 health to effectively 625 shields and 625 health in regard to bodyshots. And that boost to shields is going to be immensely helpful by making that layer of regenerating health a little thicker in firefights.

I think one of the biggest rough patches we're going to hit with this is that for a sizable portion of the community, nanoweave is has become so common it's seen as the norm in terms of 'balance'

YES. Finally!

This makes nanoweave act more like a body armor instead of magical health buff, which is a great change and gives it more designated role. Currently its just too universal, because it protects you against all damage sources, which also affects the usefulness of flak armor.

- Use flak armor, if you want extra protection against explosives
- Use nanoweave it you want extra protection against bullets

Getting the picture?

So they nerfed nanoweave; and they nerfed flak damage, which is one of the only reasons not to use nanoweave.

It's hyperbole but its still too close. Considering Im at ranges where Im almost always unable to one shot NW5 when sniping, this will def. suck. Not everyone has NW5 now but after this balance patch comes in, in the viewpoint of a sniper, everyone after 150m might as well have NW5.

I am so waiting for Mustrade to see this.

I though the same

i dont like The idea of nanoweave not working against headshots on ANY weapon.
And how about the cheap BA sniper range less than the second tier less than last tier?
i mean
xm98<V10<Parallax

I LOLed.

Right now the dev's have the choice of balancing for nanoweave, meaning anyone without nanoweave is at a significant disadvantage, or balancing while ignoring nanoweave, meaning anyone with nanoweave is at a significant advantage. Either way, it makes nanoweave a best-in-slot choice by a significant factor, and makes balancing AoE really painful because you have three cases to worry about: no armour, nano or flak.

With the proposed change, anyone firing a weapon can pretty much expect that roughly 50% of targets they shoot at will have no resistance bonus to whatever they're firing. If they're firing a gun and the target has flak, the target has zero resistance. If they're firing a grenade and the target has nano, the target has zero resistance.

If you're a good shot, you'll ignore damage anyway because headshots ignore damage resistance.

This means that weapons can be balanced on the assumption that players don't have +25% health. This is a good thing - and this is why flak damage can now be safely reduced. Because it doesn't have to account for nano anymore. It means greandes can be effective without having to be hand-nukes, because they don't have to account for nano anymore.

And that actually good. The large imbalance with new and old character is reduce by a great deal which is something I always thought as stupid. Let noob die because they are incompetent and not because they don't understand how ******* powerful NW is.


As for the range, it might be slightly too short somehow but I don't think it should be that much longer. I always found long range sniping to be a crutch and in the end, pretty pathetic and unhelpful. Forcing people to get closer for a higher risk/reward is good and should be encourage. Mobility should be something to be important and praise for.

This is also why I'm waiting on what they are going to do with tier of sniper. If the T3 sniper get like 30-40m additional OHK range, I'm perfectly good.