Developer Thread: QoL Changes

Feature: Option to automatically decline revives.
Reason: I never accept revives and it's annoying to have to decline twice in order for the notification to go away when i don't want it.

Feature: Option to remove the "The S-AMS you last spawned at is under attack!"
Reason: This notification spams the screen way too much in my opinion and I have no intention to take care of sunderers that I spawn at. I'd like to be able to remove that message.

I was about to post but my 'list' but it would have been pretty much exactly this one. I would like to add one more thing tho.

Feature/Bug: Let us set our render distance lower than 500m from the in game slider. (Can already be done from UserOption.ini file)

Reason: Render distance can greatly increase your frame rates in large fights like biolabs where you never need render distances over 200-300m. This setting does not require game restart so it can be changed on the fly depending what you are doing. The current issue is that if you have set it to 300m from UserOptions.ini file and then increase it for vehicle play you need to restart the game to go back to 300 simply because the in game slider does not go lower than 500m.

Feature: Help Tab

Reason: A public help tab that could assist people with problems. This may be prompet after the Tutorial for the user to know this. This does not have to be for a new player but for the entire player base. (I am aware there is a reddit thread weekly about asking questions, but the Planetside 2 Reddit is not advertised)

Link: Link

Feature: More Crosshair options

Reason: A lot of players prefer static crosshairs (I know its not typed correctly) or different colors or different crosshairs entirely. They are really nice options that are not offered in Planetside yet.

Link: N/A

I had the editor bug a lot for me, sorry if there are a lot of spaces.

Manually slowing down phoenix missile. If you don't want to make it both fly snd turn faster just let me slow that rocket down while leaving turn speed as is, so I'll pay some speed for increased maneuverability. It won't be OP, but will add a tad bit more skill to using it effectively.

Feature: Add Hunter CQX-P to the exceptional directive.

Reason: I paid $20 and slew 1160 people with it. Waiting on my black camo.

Feature: Respawn screen shows what vehicle spawn options are possible at various bases

Suggestion: Move to a tooltip that pops up when hovering over the bases' HEX in higher res, size, and glorious beauty.

Reason: The current representation is small icons in an arbitrary place which can be difficult to see and are not in an intuitive location. Imagine if you could see this when you simply look and hover over places on the map. The ability to quickly recognize the relative distance and value of base from your current location would be baws.

Feature/Bug: Attempting to fire while cloaked should decloak your character.

Reason: There are enough visual and lag related bugs with the cloak that it's often hard to tell if you're cloaked or if the ability key you just furiously mashed five times is going to take effect in three seconds when you're trying to kill an enemy. Making it so attempting to fire decloaks you would provide an easy, surefire way to break cloak and engage an enemy when needed.




Feature/Bug: Vehicle selection should use number and F key hotkeys the same as infantry selection.

Reason: I consistently run up to vehicle terminals and try to quickly cycle through my vehicles the same way I quickly switch between infantry loadouts only to find the vehicle I just pulled is not my #4 AP lightning, but my #2 Skyguard. As with infantry loadouts it'd make switching to the vehicle/loadout I desire a much more streamlined process.

Feature/Bug: Controller Support

Reason: We had it prior to the Valk patch on 8/29. Most people had all of their controller binds wiped in this patch, and now the PS2 client refuses to recognize most controller input. I used a wired 360 pad with default Windows drivers for driving and flying and now PS2 won't accept any input from the face buttons, triggers, or bumpers, and only accepts 2 (out of 4) directions on each analog stick. Can workaround by using third party software to clone keyboard keys onto the controller, but this results in a loss of analog (pressure-sensitive) steering, throttle, and braking that used to be offered with the in-game support.

Feature/Bug: +5 rounds per clip to M18 rotary
Reason: the M18 rotary was nerfed a long time ago due to Mosquitos overperforming due to the striker. Now that the striker has been nerfed, the mosquito no longer overperforms, so the M18 deserves those 5 rounds back to differentiate it over the other two rotaries.

To justify this change, here are some stats:

Current damage per mag:
M18: 11400
Vortek: 10560
Hailstorm: 10350

M18 has ~8% more dpm than the vortek, and ~10% more dpm than the hailstorm. However, here are the DPS figures:

Vortek dps: 4,000
Hailstorm DPS: 3,285
M18 rotary dps: 3,333

Despite the m18 having virtually identical DPS to the hailstorm, the scythe has a far thinner frontal hitbox than the mosquito. It also has far less dps than the vortek.

Therefore, I propose that the m18 rotary is given back +5rounds, to solidify the diferences between the ESFs- the reaver has the most damaging noseguns, the scythe has the most favorable hitbox, and the mosquito has the greatest sustained fire capability, penalized by a reload .75 seconds longer than the scythe's.

Here are links to some discussions concerning this topic:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/24vyf0/should_m18_rotary_get_a_buff/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/22osg6/pts_unofficial_patch_notes_140409_needler_buff/

Feature: Projectiles shot from aircraft have the aircraft's velocity added to their own muzzle velocity.

Reason: In real life, projectiles fired from a moving object would inherit the velocity of the object from which they are fired. For example, if I were to fire Hornet Missiles (muzzle velocity 125m/s) from my Scythe (max speed when moving straight forward 200kph, which translates to 55m/s), I would expect them to be fired moving 180m/s since they were already moving 55m/s before they were even fired, and the force of the missile itself should be sufficient to add 125m/s to that velocity no matter what the starting velocity is.

This change would probably be best off only being implemented on aircraft, since it would throw off every tank user's aim (especially Magrider users, who often rely on popping around corners and snapping our aim to a target) and it would make almost no difference to infantry. However, you would receive endless praise from Liberator and Valkyrie gunners for making leading targets more intuitive.

Feature: Overlay around the edges of the screen to indicate that you are cloaked as an Infiltrator or are on a cloaked Flash. This should show when using an overlay scope as well.

Reason: When using a cloak, there aren't enough visual cues to indicate this when considering that the player will mostly be focused on the center of the screen, leaving your gun and arms and the cloak indicator in peripheral vision. This can lead to some stupid deaths where your cloak runs out right before you are about to unload an SMG in an enemy's face. Your cloak runs out, and you press F intending to uncloak, but you are already uncloaked and instead cloak yourself again. Now you're staring at your enemy, unable to fire, and end up being gunned down. Overlay scopes make this an even worse problem when centralized HUD isn't enabled, since you have to either look at a corner of the screen and see if the bar is moving up or down, or you have to rely on the cloak sound (keeping in mind that there might be other friendly infiltrators nearby). A simple overlay could help by putting something noticeable in peripheral vision. It could even just be a cloak icon one third of the way from the top of the screen if there isn't any time to make a pretty looking overlay.

Feature - Magrider Freelook
Reason - All other tanks can, and the Mag, being a high-mobility vehicle, needs it the most.

Feature - Vehicle Deconstruction
Reason - With continent locking, HUD bugs making ESFs unusable and the need to occasionally change loadouts, this is required.

Feature - All ESF secondaries firing from the wings and not from the camera (at least for the visual effect)
Reason - There is nothing more stupid than being blinded by your own Coyotes/Rocket pods/whatever immediately after firing.

Feature - Vehicle Zoning (AKA continent change)
Reason - Similar to deconstruction, with continents locking and battles being more spread around Auraxis, this is needed.

feature: working directives
reason: not fun to realize the progress was reset after grinding for 2 days to get 1 thousand kills

Feature: yaw/roll rebind for mouse flying controls

Reason: I would be much more comfortable if I could bind yaw to mouse and roll to A-D. Mouse roll is the only flying control that cannot be changed. People have been asking for this since alpha.

Links: There used to be a HUGE thread on this here, but it seems to be gone.
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/rebind-yaw-to-mouse_x.197539/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1flczq/am_i_the_only_pilot_who_wants_yaw_on_the_mouse/

Feature/Bug: Debris Physics

Reason: There are two problems with debris physics. First, debris gains inexplicable amounts of momentum. Second, debris deals massive amounts of damage to vehicles on even light contact. Combine both and you have an extremely frustrating experience that can ruin any enjoyable session.

Link: http://gfycat.com/ThunderousHelpfulHerring

Higby and I are reading through these now. We'll have a working list to share with you guys tomorrow, once we weigh cost and overall demand for each.

Thanks!

I just remembered one more I really wanted!

Feature: Auto consume implant chargers on aquisition

Reason: I like to keep my charge as high as possible, and it gets really annoying having to go through and manually use 30 chargers at a time.

Some reasons will incorporate jokes and memes from South Park - you better be prepared.

Feature: Increase the default field of view.
Reason: Oh you can't see things beside you? Oh geez, that's too bad. Maybe you should play another fun MMOFPS - oh wait, we're the only ones in town.

Feature: Projection for rumble seat passengers in the Valkyrie.
Reason: You currently have four passengers in your Valkyrie... aaaaaaand they're gone.

Feature: Throwable C4 and its detonation lag.
Reason: Too short distance and it takes forever to detonate.

Feature: Shooting automatically removes infiltrator from stealth.
Reason: Getting out of stealth takes precious moments that ruin kills.

Feature: Pressing the sprint key and trying to sprint will automatically bring you back from aiming to hip fire.
Reason: Un-aiming or un-scoping, like the reasons above, takes precious moments that end up getting me killed.

Feature: Grenade throws either too slow or don't detonate upon death.
Reason: Maybe it was intended to not allow grenades to explode if you throw them a fraction of a second before death, but if you could at least reduce the time it takes to get the grenade out of your hand then that would be awesome.

Feature: Allow Engineers the ability to use both Carbines and Assault Rifles.
Reason: Assault Rifles seem very practical for engineers whereas medics are usually so heavily invested in healing and reviving that they don't make full use of their primary weapons in the heat of battle.

Feature: Louder aircraft engines that sound a little more like turbojets today.
Reason: Increase immersion with engines sounding like they should - loud and mean. Or at least have the ability to adjust engine volume. The exhaust should also have 'mach diamonds' since the flow is most likely supersonic on these high-tech engines. It would look cool, trust me

Feature: Mosquito engines shouldn't flare out when afterburning.
Reason: As an Aerospace Engineer, I can say that as far as jet engines work, flaring out the sides will not make the vehicle go faster. What should happen in game is that the engines should be much louder and the exhaust should appear hotter or brighter.

Feature: All scopes available for all guns, including scopes from NS guns.
Reason: Sometimes I prefer the NS scope on a non-NS gun and other times I wish to use 6x scopes on guns in which they aren't available. This won't hurt balance but make guns have more roles.

Feature: Empire-Specific Vehicles for all Vehicles.
Reason: Will make identifying enemy vehicles easier.

Feature: Spotting Enemy Outfits On Map

Reason: Allow Squad and Platoon leaders to mark location of enemy outfit/size at a base. This will allow more strategic awareness for commanders as they can better understand who they will possibly be fighting against.

Feature: Spotting Friendly Outfit On Map

Reason: Mark the location of allied platoons/squads by their respective way point. This can show commanders exactly who is fighting at a base without having to talk on command chat.

It would be nice to have the option for separate weapon and viewport FoV, so you could tweak the viewmodels separately from the actual camera. Similar to what's shown in the middle portion of this video:

Feature/Bug: Undetonated mine indicator

Reason: I'd like an indicator for my mines, tank and infantry, letting me know when they are blown up so I can go put some more down.

Link: I don't have a link but this has been asked for on numerous occasions.

And thank you, dev team, for using your forums.