[Suggestion] Bubbles, Spitfires, Implants drops and membership

@FateJH, maybe you are right, I shouldn't had bothered in the first place, at the end of the day SOE will do whatever they want, they only care about their media reputation and not what players think, I truly recognize I have no social skills, and I got stuck with someone's opinion of my outfit and myself, forums and media are not for me, maybe I'm the only one bothered by such things and to be honest, I don't have the numbers for such facts so the only thing I can do is to NOT support the game with my money any more because I don't like the directions it is taking and feel powerless and that my opinion will have no impact what so ever in such decisions.

I hope they know what they are doing and wish you best of luck with SOE and their decisions, SOE mods please feel free to close the thread.

Like I said, the bubbles could stand to be turned down graphically. I definitely wouldn't mind it being invisible, it's not like it blocks bullets so it really doesn't need the visibility of a real shield.

It's definitely not useless though. Starting regeneration immediately on taking damage instead of waiting 10s is huge, especially when facing semi-auto snipers or bodyshotting BASRs. At higher ranks, the rapid regeneration rate contributes significantly to the group's survivability. Combining it with the medic tool allows you to heal HP and shields simultaneously, and grants a few points of instant shield HP to anyone you revive, which means less downtime for damaged players.

Also there's that thing with the sundy deployment shield.

Its main drawback is that since you can't instantly activate it on the move, it's not as strong for soloing or 1v1 fights. But really you should be avoiding those as a medic: always have at least one patient.

Do you know that the only thing shield regen gets at higher level is radio, not regen tick bigger or anything, and you only get 1/4 of a bullet damage restored per tick approximately which is much less than AOE heal, also, AOE heals stack and shield regen doesn't, so two regen shields won't give you twice the shield regen, if two medics have AOE heal you will probably not die, the bubble IMHO creates a false sense of security, a visual annoyance, lower FPS and makes medics less useful.

When did Planetside 2 become an MMO-FPS!?

Did I miss an update or something?

One of the things that kills this game are the folks that simply refuse to change classes to suit the situation. Especially the veterans.

I've said it a a lot in posts, the classes are aspects of your character. You aren't tied to one class unless you choose to do so.

The devs missed the boat as well by instituting the directives as this tends to exacerbate the situation.

I understand why they did it, there really isn't anything to do in this game, but it made things worse and the players far more self-centered.

Then again, the focus on the game has tended toward self-aggrandizement anyway.

People don't gravitate toward team play because the focus is on the individual. It's stats, your vids and the color of your combat pajamas.

Much of it related to the fact that the map means virtually nothing in this game. Heck, even the factions mean nothing other than preventing 1/3 of the players in the game from shooting at you... well, nearly, since there's so much TKing going on.

The game is a really confused mess right now.

@uhlan, I thought this was an MMO-FPS, confused here , so much truth in your post. Directives was the "root" of all evil, the other things are just side effects, directives should had been more challenging and less grinding oriented...but then, so many post stating the obvious.

Only a handful of real ways around this part.

Comparison to Planetside Classic Merit Commendations are in order since that is our precedent. Take, for example, the commendation for Hacking Support. "Awarded for kills scored by friendly troops after they have used one or more of the following that was hacked by you." The wording there is very important, as, even if the core activity performed by you is passive, the action required for accreditation is that someone else kills something, which might be evidence of grinding on their part towards a weapon merit. What about the Lodestar, a vehicle whose purpose was transporting other Vehicles? Accreditation is awarded by the individual having been transported killing something. Now let's take the commendation for Basic Weapons, which demonstrates the model for kill-based merit is earned - a certain number of unique kills, plus a kill streak of a certain length. Introducing the concept of unique kills might have made Directives more complicated but the underlying grind remains, even if it has been rendered less deterministic. I am willing to claim that it won't change player behavior at all.

The handful of merits that exist that have nothing to do with killing - such as Exploration - are dwarfed by the ones that involve killing.

The merits that had actual tangible rewards, I'd like to add, were the ones for Annual Terms of Service, i.e., being subscribed for a certain number of years.

Edit: I also offer up something as innocuous as the Combat Medic merit as an example. That other guy better make your healing him having been worth it. (At least PS2 awards the healing itself, rather than predicating/predisposing the target's behavior after being healed, in regards to the Directive.)