Happy New Year & Update 02 Info!

Protected Balconies should be shielding most of the HE from Tanks and air though and allow them to return fire in kind.

You obviously never been in a camped Air Tower where people put bouncing betties in the teleporter. Tunnels will be choke points, but can be fought out of.

I believe they are focusing more on the fact that people complain about how some of the missile hits seem to show 'hit' but not really 'threatening' in damage. The lockon AI has nothing to do with 'breaking' but the fact the time of the missile is finite and its turning handling is atrocious at times.

Not three shots, three-four seconds. Yes, my tanks have died many times from a Scythe lining up on me with photon pods, and my full health Vanguard is dead in three-four seconds. And that is just one aircraft, if there are two of them, it's over much more quickly. Why do tanks need to cert and specify a loadout for HE, AP and HEAT guns, while the aircraft have the universal kill-all rocket pods? Aircraft would be made to come down a bit from their high perch of mass destruction if their HE rockets did bupkiss to tanks, and their AP rockets were only a nuisance to infantry.

Why is a max better at taking out aircraft then a 70 ton anti-air tank? Was it too difficult for the tank designers to slap a bitty little Burster on a Vanguard?

Why can a light aircraft like a Scythe take out a tank, faster then a tank, built to kill tanks, can take out another tank, or a Scythe? I guess that 1/8 inch of aircraft aluminum is tougher then four inches of hardened steel tank hull. I know I'm resorting to sarcasm, but someone over at SOE decided to make aircraft armed with rocket pods the best weapons platform to destroy everything else on the battlefield, and the best at evading every other weapons platform on the battlefield too.

The best weapons platform to take out aircraft is another aircraft. Oddly, the best weapons platform to take out infantry and armor, is also an aircraft. Who knew? The only equalizer we had on the ground against aircraft was the Burster max, and this unbalanced the game somehow was it so unfair, that now aircraft need to see them from 500 meters?

If your scythes are getting shot out of the sky quickly... You have craptastic pilots flying them, especially if they are getting shot down by Ground AA.

I am not a pro with bursters on any of the faction MAX armors or on the turret or on the skyguard, but smarted ESF pilots do make it hard for Flak cannons to burn them down because of the required 'need to be on target' hitting of the round. If an ESF pilot is flying straight, predictable path, or hovering... Of course they are going to get shot down out of the sky by a single gun, but it still takes more than one AAer to seriously down a smarter ESF pilot and even more than 3 to bring down a lib with a pilot with half a brain.

Let me guess... your one of the squeaky wheels whom accepts a rez in the line of fire only to question why he just died so quickly two seconds later?

It's a general 'nerf' to reduce its effectiveness against infantry, not to balance any faction out.

If it's going to be anything like BF3's mechanic, it'll be just long enough to spawn, look around and decide which direction you want to run in. At leat you can't spawn on your squad members, knowing exactly where the enemy isand watch him dump a whole mag into your before you kill him. You'll likely have enough initial confusion to get a brief glimpse of your surroundings and either begin supressive fire or run for cover. Since the moment you move or shoot you're vulnerable.

Changes look good, though as said some are vague and leave a lot to the imagination. But we'll see how they turn out.

I get the feeling this means they won't actually change anything except give the Skyguards faster turret traverse & elevation, and probably give it more negative depression so it can function on the crest of a hill.
In which case, it sounds like the devs have concluded AA is "working as intended" (as evidenced by "not drastically impacting their DPS").

I suppose I could be mildly optimistic about guided missiles, but the statement on them is deliberately vague.

One of the patches made it so that ground-to-air missiles either lose lock, go ballistic, or are so slow that they are easily out run. The chance for a ground fired missile to hit a plane is about 25% or less right now. Yes i know aircraft have flares, but I have fired three rockets at the same same aircraft and watch the rockets refuse to track, miss, and be out run, too many times to not realize that someone at SOE wanted to make ground fired rockets to "discourage" aircraft, and not actually destroy them.

The invunerable thing at a respawn at a Sunderer is more fair to people who spawn there and then become instant 'cash' for people using it as a spawn camping. Now as far as the Revive thing... Personally, it could do without, but I think there should be no gain, kill or XP wise for taking down a recently revived person, because dumb combat medics trying to get heal XP revive people in an obvious 'I'm going to get killed' area.

Someone did mention a possible abuse, which I can see happening, using the revived as a 'shield wall' type event which can definitely be bad, but in the case of a sunderer farm... It needs to be there because for infantry who spawn at an attacked sunderer, it shouldn't be an easy 'cash cow' for a camper and their focus should be more on blowing the source of the spawning, not trying to milk it. This would also slow down people abusing the mechanic.

Every missile I fired that didn't involve a flare using ESF, tracked, but was outrunned or out maneuvered.

Omg I just about wwtfbbqsauce'd when I read that support classes would be getting an EXP system fix.

Higby I personally want you to know that these update notes are fantastic.

Does the support class xp system included Repair sunderers, currently it don't bleeding work.... and can you plase move Repair /Rearm from Defence to Utility where it belongs pls.

well if youre fixing things, NC seem to have disadvantage, due to most of their guns being slower than all races, and the damage about the same, so we have no advantages. i rarely see NC fighters up because they get outmanouvered so easily and are only good for rocket runs. tanks are fine tho, cause tanks are meant to be big and slow. sorry for all the complaining but all the time ive played as NC i always seem to feel at a disadvantage.

I do strongly dislike the unrealistic invulnerability, but everything else is necessary for Planetside 2 to become more balanced and a better combined-arms game. The net result of the update is positive.

this also includes AA Max's being classed as Vehicles so yet more rocketpod spam will be incoming, totally useless gameplay adition to yet again cowtow to flyboys.

the only way you will get shot down by rocket pods that quickly in an MBT is if the pilot descended so low that he could line up the rockets directly at your rear tank armour, and if that happens, well, tough luck.
thats a high risk high reward method, that ESF could easily be 1 shot while doing it from rockets or a tank round...
it takes 2 clips of rockets to kill a tank if you dont like up with it's back
if you dont agree then why dont you trial the rocket pods and see for yourself

"UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison"

I was really afraid of this. SPM works as a session stat, because you remember how you played in any given session, but as a persistent stat, over the life of a player, in a non-round-based game it serves absolutely no purpose. We shouldn't be driven to get straight to the fight to boost our SPM when staying in the sanctuary longer to form up with our outfits would actually be more effective. Just face it; There's no stats that accurately measure effectiveness. Just list them all (including SPM, if you'd like), and don't give precedence to any of them.

I strongly disagree. I have been in situations where I have out maneuvered revers and been horribly out maneuvered myself in my mossy, its more to do about the skill of the pilot using the vehicle. Also from a TR stand point all I seem to see are Revers and Syths, I am aware that this is not due to balance issues but because fighter aircraft are better at attacking then defending. Being highly mobile unless your flying with them you will only really notice them when they kill you, and your own fighters don't normally kill you.

As for your guns, again I disagree. If you focus on personally getting better with them you will find they can out muscle TR weapons quite frequently. Especially with a couple head shots thrown in (thanks to their slightly higher damage).

For the smaller bases, if your trying to hold them as a squad or outfit half the battle is knowing where to place a sunderer so that you will have two spawn maybe three spawns. The way the game plays out now is perfect, theres just a higher learning curve and less room for lone wolfs. Sadly I think that might get ruined by the feedback SOE is getting at the moment.

• General performance increases, particularly for lower end GPUs

This is good

• Experience (XP) system enhancements:
  • Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills on their current life are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
  • Partial damage XP for dealing damage to vehicles that you don't end up killing
  • Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global
  • Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses
  • Rebalancing of XP rewards to help support tasks

This changes nothing, it wont stop the spawn camping, it actually punishes the foot soldier in most cases. This game really doesnt need to make it harder to earn certs.

• Server transfer token available in Depot

Good your allowing transfers, bad your going to make us pay. I feel sorry for people who picked the wrong server.

• UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison

Meh, epeen comparison chart.

• Sortable columns on outfit management & addition of "last online" column

Good for outfit management

• New weapon type for all empires: SMG

Great something else we can pay for. Only way for this gun to be anyway useful is for the Infiltrator to get it.

• Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players - breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.

Bad, so very bad. Wont stop spawn camping, and now you will have a million medics farming xp and abusing the revive system.

• Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon

More Squad options is good.

• New Hot Spot system that displays where active fights are occurring on the map

Depends how accurate it is. If its going to pinpoint us on a map cause we have sneaked in somewhere and killed a couple of guys then its going to be bad.

• New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.

Again wont change the main problem of air power. I cant shoot through a Balcony to hit a Air target and it gives HE shells a extra wall to hit for splash damage. Easy access to the roof, Liberators are waiting for ya.

• Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.

Lazy, lazy. Couple of NC Maxs and nothing is going up that tunnel. Its a rockets/nad spammers wet dream.

• Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles

Great made Buster Maxs a priority target to be engaged more than likely outside there effective range.

• AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.

Good, once its the cof your improving and not just something stupid like turret speed. A range buff to hit them ceiling libs would be great.

• Fixes to missiles so that they more reliably detonate and actually blow stuff up

What about actually reliably hitting the target?

• Air vehicle weapon tweaks

Such as?

• Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons

Which vehicles? And what about the Zephyr?

• And of course... lots of bug fixes

Always good.

Alrighty, just give them full thoughts then. If you support everything they do the bad ideas start to build like a cancer in the game.