Now that we can finally get out hands on the Directives its time for some feedback. Befor i start i have some Questions: 1. Why was the structure not brought to public earlier for suggestions? 2. Why are weapons and there medals only in one category each? 3. Will the conversion for old medals into the directives work on medals or on kills? (I ask because i have an C-4 Auraxium but only 650 Kills because vehicle kills counted towards medals at that time) 4. Are kills for directive entries like X kills saved beyond the value so they dont get lost between stages? Now lets start: Im not sure what you actually wnated to achieve with the Directive System, but i found the structure and the stuff that needs to be done in some cases ugly, disturbing or simply unfair. Ill go over the categories and write my feedback for every category. Infantry Combat Medic This looks very solid, but since it has only 6 Entries but needs 5 solved i think you should add some additional entries to add diversity: - Players revived by Revive Grenades (bringing the Revive Grenades to teh Directives) - MAXes revived Demolitions This category looks very ugly since some explosives are missing, i would suggest to add the following: - Vehicle Grenades (they are explosives and should stay here and ad the Heavy Assault Directive) - Sticky Grenades (same as with Vehicle Grenades) Engineer This also looks very solid, but the same issue like the medic, you have only a small number of categories. I would suggest to add the folowing: - Enemy Engineers killed - Anti-Tank Heavy Assault Since there are alot of Rocket Launcher sin the game you should consider moving them to there own directive. Also there are 2 Rocket Launchers missing here anyway. I suggest to add the following: - Anti-Tank - Air Deterence - Enemy Heavy Assaults killed - Enemy MAXes killed - Concussed Enemies killed - Kills around objectives Infiltrator I dont know what you doing here, but the Scout rifles need to be removed, there is no point for heaving specialized weapons in this category. I suggest to add the following: - Enemy Infiltrators killed - Turrets and Terminals hacked - Recon (same as the ribbon) - Marksman (same as the ribbon) - EMPed Enemies killed Light Assault This one is realy empty. Im not sure if you simply forgot it or ran out of ideas. I think we should fill it up with the following: - Enemy Light Assaults killed - Enemy MAXes killed - Anti-Tank - Spawn Beacons killed (maybe this will get Lights to go for enemy beacons on roofs more often?) - Spotter (because they usually have a good overview) - Kills around objectives - Flashbanged Enemies killed Marksman Im not sure what this has to do with the BRs you pushed in there, but the BRs should be removed. Instead this one should completely focus on 70m+ kills, either in one big point or in points split up into different weapon types that have values varying on the dificulty (ie more kills needed for Bolt Actions but less for pistols etc) MAX So you ran out of ideas again? Lets add the following - Anti-Tank - Air Deterence - Enemy MAXes killed - Kills around Objectives Vehicles Flash It looks solid, but you should add: - Recon (because Scout Radar) Galaxy Did Galaxies ran out of weapons lately? You should add the following: - all 8 weapons - Tank Kills (because of Galaxy) Harasser What happened to Bulldog/Walker/Ranger/Basilisk? Are they no longer considered weappons on the Harasser? You should add the following: - Bulldog - Ranger - Walker - Basilisk - Tank Kills - Air Deterence Liberator There is a buggy entry on stage one. Also did we ran out of Belly and Tail guns? Remove the following: - Belly Gun Kills - Tail Gun kills Add the following: - all Belly guns - all Tail guns Lightning This one looks nice MBT The same issue like the Harasser, Walker/Ranger/Basilisk missing. Add the following: - Walker - Ranger - Basilisk - Air Deterence (because it can have AA as Secondary) - Roadkills ESF This looks nice Sunderer This this vehicle unarmed? Never forget the Sunderer is a Combat Vehicle and should be treated as such. Remove the following: - Gun Kills Add the following: - All weapons (and with all i mean all 12) - Anti-Tank - Air Deterence - Ram Kills (ever drove ofer a Flash? Its funny) Weapons Now here we are in the unfair category. All Entrys in this area are build around Auraxium medals. Every weapon group requires 4-5 Auraxiums but doesnt take any notice on players that have way more kills on single weapons but not much auraxiums. This makes everything a bit unfair in my opion. You could resolve this by adding as much boxes as the stage needs to be solved that are all clones and state "do x kills with a single weapon of this category". As an example, on SMGs stage 1 could have 1 box (since it needs only 1) that requires 1k kills with a single SMG, stage 2 would have 2 boxes that require 2.5k kills with a single SMG, stage 3 would be 3 boxes that require 4k kills and stage 4 would be 4 boxes that require 6k kills. Since all of the boxes would be filled at the same time a player with a single SMG with 6k kills could pass the Directive having more kills then all Auraxiums together. There should be an Entry for Rocket Launchers since there are 6 available wich fit together very well. There should be an Entry for Battle Rifles. There should be an Entry for Scout Rifles. The Entry Exceptional is ugly and highly unfair. The problem is that it not only contains weapons that are only available for a short amount of time, but it also contains weapons that are not available. You should not forget that Platinum versions of several weapons are only available in the US and nowhere else, making it very hard for players outside of the US to obtain them (as a note the 1500SC cards with the Platinum Commisioner where only available via Ebay in Europe for 25 USD). I hope my Feedback is helpfull and you can get some of the stuff worked in.
An overall simplifying of the Directives would be nice so you don't have to basically read a manual on what the Directives are in deciphering the new Directives Tab added, they should be mostly secondary things that occur from just playing the game and not looking for specific achievements, upon logging on and looking at the directives screen i was somewhat confused as to what it was supposed to represent, wasnt until I started getting kills do some of those Directives start to fill in.
Going to add that the mots confusing thing is the lack of language telling the player anything on the screen, need more descriptions telling people whats up and how to navigate the menus, show your closest to completion directive...
Some solid points. I really like including some of the more supportive ribbons into directives like point defense and spotting. Infiltrators especially need some love as I exclusively play the class as a close quarters fighter with SMGs. I'm a bit torn on vehicle weapons and including all of them. Some vehicle weapons are simply not a viable option. The drake, the harasser-basilisk. The flash directives (as they are on test) look dreadful because the situations a combat flash is viable in is limited. Maybe something simple like kilometers driven would be a decent fallback if someone can't get kills with it. I would hate to have to be stuck in a situation where I have to get drake kills to advance. Rocket launchers are a bit strange and I rarely get kills with them (except when shooting at infantry) because their role is so often for deterrence and not killing. Having their own line that reflects their support nature would be nice. I also wanted to add that many of the directives strongly reward focused gameplay. I just picked up my 6th auraxium 2 days ago but they're all across different categories. I have 2 LMGs, 1 AR, 1 SMG, 1 shotgun, 1 tank. And 4 of those medals were earned playing Heavy Assault. I feel a bit left behind. Allowing some of these to count towards multiple, more general categories would be nice.
Since you need 5 directives completed to complete tier 4 the additional weapons would just pose options. I think its a bit odd if vehicles dont include the default weapons that new players would be in touch with first.
What ever happened to the continent specific directives? Or directive point rewards? (Instead of tying stuff like the black camo to the Exceptional weapons.) I assume advanced directives are coming at a later date?
I tested the system and I must repeat what I said months ago: It's shoehorning players into a role. Sure, you can switch classes and play as usual and progress over all categories. But the system is rewarding focus. So yo are told to kill 10 people with a Battle Rifle (250 Certs unlock), then do what the directives tell you to do next. The MAX directives are primitive, kill 50 guys, next kill 250 guys... but at least they let you choose with which weapon or MAX-fist you kill stuff. So that's kinda good! So to unlock the special weapon at the max tier people will focus on on track. The higher tiers are more demanding and time consuming, you don't get this playing normally. This game again has an identity crisis. This is straightforward shooter crap. But this is Planetside, and directives of this kind really don't add to the game. Even the rather clumsy mission system is way more in the spirit of PS2 as open world shooter / combat sim. When I want to do repetitive things no matter how little sense it makes to do, I would rather play a grindy MMO. I am afraid feedback that these directives are a bad idea has been noticed but ignored. So well, we are going to get this. I really don't like it at all. And no, it is not a great feature of a system that you can totally ignore it if you want.
Directive points themselves are not intended to be useful. They're just for bragging rights. Rewards are meant to be tied to specific directives themselves, rather than making directive points yet another form of currency. Pretty much. Higby said they just wanted to get the basic system out there and get it working. Complex/specific/special directives will come later. Some will require extra coding. I'm paraphrasing Higby, but I can link you the vid and give time stamps, if it's really necessary.
I'm worried the weapon specific directives will rub new players and F2P players the wrong way. Getting another weapon is a pretty big investment at the early levels and/or cheap players.
Getting an Auraxium medal is worth a minimum of 696 certs from kills + medal rewards. Combine this with capture rewards, daily login certs, extra ribbons (marksman, spotting, objective support, etc) and it's really not that expensive for a weapon. If someone is willing to put in the dedication to auraxium a weapon they should be able to afford more. Some of the weapons aren't even that expensive at 100 or 250 certs.
They're in the "exceptional" category. Yes. Malorn said there'll be "Prestige directives" later on. http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/...ession_of_the_light_assault/cj7mx7e?context=3
Can we uncouple some of the directive rewards from specific tracks? I noticed medic has an armor option as a reward, but what about people that don't play medic? Now that the point cost for directives is fairly balanced we should be able to unlock certain rewards with directive points. Also, what about account-exp bonuses? I had read somewhere that one of the possible rewards for getting directive points would be an account-wide experience bonus. This would be great as it would make leveling up my alts easier.
I agree with a lot of things Xebov mentioned. I played as Heavy Assault for the most part on the PTS, and I would really like to see more variety among their directives. Most of them were based on getting medals for different rocket launchers. While rocket launchers are definitely an important part of the class, infantry killing and capturing objectives is also very important. Trying to Auraxium so many different rocket launchers would not only require a lot of unlocks, but also be very monotonous. Getting directives based on rocket launchers AND enemy max kills, enemy heavy kills, anti-tank, concussive grenades, etc., would make the Heavy Assault directives more fun and better balanced. Edit: One more thing about the HA directives: I worry that many HAs will prioritize infantry (rather than vehicles) with their rockets in order to more quickly earn those Auraxiums. I feel that this would significantly change the flow of battle. Since this is already a controversial issue among the community, I think having so many rocket launcher directives would be something that would do more harm than help.
Those, along with the flareguns, snowball gun, gold SMGs, AE bundle ESRL's, and the two valentines day crossbows (Blackheart and Heartstrings) are all in the "Exceptional" tab. However, I agree that they should count as double. There's no way to get these without spending real money on SOE's game (or promoting their game, in the case of the FB pistols) and as such, they should count for the exceptional and their respective tabs. For example: I have the NS-11P Auraxiumed, and should get credit for it in both the exceptional and the AR tabs. I have gold on the Heartstrings, and should get credit for it in both the exceptional and the pistol tabs. So on and so forth. As well, I think there should be a RL tab, with some form of RL for the final level of that (Or even just an auraxium weapon only camo that shimmers like the directive Auraxium infused armors, or directive weapon textures).
It's an achievement system that's not time sensitive. Free players can easily ignore or hold off on these ones until they've got their favorite class certed out. The way I see it, this is NOT meant for new or newish players. This is meant for upper BR players, of which SOE states they have a problem with a lot of them hoarding certs anyways. (Higby mentions this when he talks about the cert economy) For new players, the directives are the last thing they should be worrying about in this game anyway.
Huh? Scout rifle infiltrator is a perfectly valid class role. It's no more "specialized" than are the sniper and the SMG CQB roles. I've played all three and find it to be the most challenging and enjoyable. I wish. Currently though the live game doesn't even give you kill credit for EMPing the enemy's own explosives under their feet, let alone assist credit. And in Test, EMP-ing deployables doesn't register as a deployable kill in the directives tally either. Hopefully it's not an insurmountable bug, but based on how EMPs work on live I'm concerned.
