Heavy Shield- Rocket Primary 2.0

Its an overreaction on both sides. Does SOE know how to balance? Oh **** no. But neither to the players.
When everyone is complaining about feeling UP yet still performing as well as planned, thats about as good as you can hope for.

Unfortunately I don't believe SOE measures everything that they should be measuring. But wtf do I know, all I can see is that they log kills and weapons used. Maybe they log more than that but I doubt it.
Without logging everything its hard to measure if what you wanted to happen as a result of the nerf/buff actually happened.

For instance without logging literally everything, how can they possibly tell if the bloom per shot for a weapon is working out the way they planned? They don't, they balance it in their controlled environment shooting at targets that don't move or shoot back.

Also they aren't scientific with their patches. Game devs have huge egos and aren't willing to backpedal or admit they were wrong about anything. For the most part. I mean they backed out on some of the most insane liberator buffs but only after people were calling for blood. You have to put the fear of god in them in order for them to consider that they may need to try something else.

The best results would be attained by performing scientific patches. Have a theory, test theory in live game (not test server), observe results, see if its better than before, or create a new theory to make it better, test it out, repeat until said thing doesn't seem to get better no matter what you tweak.

Game studios basically create a theory, test it a little bit, get their ego invested in it, testing is now just a quest for personal validation, push it to live, leave it forever.

Anyways getting back to heavy shield, the delay is a good idea. The delay should be very short, like 0.25 seconds to 0.4 seconds.
This number is rather important to get right.
But the thing is, they'll have to ignore the feedback of some people, and focus on the results of testing. Was .25 too little? Was .4 too much? Need to look at the results.

Ironically probably the best way to test such an idea would be to never have presented the idea to the public and instead introduced it as a bug. By presented the idea they've created bias. Creating it as a bug would have prevented people from altering their playstyle due to an emotional response. Its too late for that now though.

Example: PPA is still wreaking face. Maybe the people still using it didn't get the memo. Its quite possible.

When my AP rounds had more drop and lower velocity I didn't know about it as a planned nerf. I just started missing and corrected a little bit during the same play session and continued wrecking face. Only later did I figure out that it was planned.

I'm sure the fact that all three characters of yours have a killfeed that is, in order, MCG spam, Anchor spam, and Orion spam, makes you supremely qualified to maintain any semblance of objectivity whatsoever.

Says the guy whining about is inability to push 'F' a whole second before he needs it.

First question is, Mustarde, what exactly do you think they would have to nerf in order to prevent you, Mustarde, from making such a video?

Second question is, would that nerf be fair to every other player in planetside 2?

Third question, and this is more general: Should any weapon be balanced around a Ravic or Sgt. Enigma tier player?

Using rockets against maxes and ESFs is fine by me. Using them against infantry is pretty cheesy though. But then again, so are maxes, spamming grenades, C4, and about 100 other things people do for kills in PS2. So I see no issue here.

You know what's funny. This post was made by a 50% HA 50% AI ESF mainer.

Which means the person is more experienced that you at HA, so he Knows what he's talking about

I've got 2.3k kills on SVA-88 and 500 with Anchor. Anyone who has played HA for even 200 kills can tell you it's the easiest and most effective class in the game for straight out infantry combat, I mean it's designed as one after all. I just find it hilarious how someone who mains the two ultimate turbocrutches in the game comes posting straight out misinformation on other class(es).

Just reduce the infantry damage, and keep the vehicle (Including MAX) damage the same, this way it won't be a 1hk when you spam on infantry, but it'd do the same to maxes and vehicles!

What.
This is the worst idea possible.
It's a foot long rocket propelled explosive round. Of course it should instakill peasants.

I play with one style and that is aggression because I get most kick out of it. I lone wolf and HA suits my play style perfectly just like with vehicles I get most kick out of the ESF especially when I go on a 25 kill streak in 80 seconds braking the dead lock on a bio lab landing pad which was spawned from the opposite landing pad.
I can play LA and infiltrator to devastating effect and stat my pads with laid back mentality of 5KDRs. You may find my previous post funny and hilarious because of the two "ultimate turbocrutches" but I would very much like you to elaborate on missinformation that you believe I presented.

HA can no longer capture points or overload generators.
Would be funny to see.

Shield factors into headshots.... It's like the Vanguard shield infact and we all know how much you Magrider & Scythe jockies HATED that thing until it was nerfed. Oh also ... EMP grenades used to work to "short circuit" nmg shield. But stopped doing that and there didn't seem to ever be a patch announcing that. So yeah.... it would be really nice if they'd go ahead and revert that back to being a counter against HA's. I might even start playing again if that was an option despite what a PITA emp nades can be and how long the delay is before we can start attacking or even just cloak after tossing one

Focusing way more achievements / Auraxium awards around something besides the farming & deatmatching would probably be the best place to start here. B/c that's what the game has become for too many vets now. It's literally the same crap I had to watch in TF2 when they introduced "Strange" weapons. ....that's about the time I started losing hope for TF2 and ended up quitting 4 months later

^^ That.

I miss doing that as an infiltrator. I mean what would you do to a heavily armored soldier in real life? Sneak up on him. It makes perfect sense. All that armor doesn't stop you from getting stabbed or slashed. Nothing sucks worse than getting the drop on an HA as an infiltrator, popping an EMP grenade and unloading on him with an SMG and have him survive by putting up his shield instantly.

I've always been a supporter of the HA shield delay but keeping it as it is and adding a few counter options to be able to fight against it would be very nice as well.

Exactly. The "Hardcore MLG deathmatch" ideas many of the CODpros have in this game is poisoning the game.

Which is why I support OHK charged knives.

Medics do not have combat roles in this game.
What you say is heresy and you shall be gunned down by Lashers approximately 21 days from now.

HV-45.
I'm sorry?

VS medic has a CQC gun?
Since when, brother?!

Since....
Release, I believe.
Heresy of the highest order, I know.

Rocket primary usage was very high on Mattherson at the time I recorded that footage. But the argument was never about "volume" of rocket kills. It was always about the very nature of using a rocket launcher designed for anti-max and AV work to OHK infantry. Just because more people started doing it doesn't change the fundamental question of "is this good game design?".

If we introduced a sniper rifle that had 1000m/s velocity and OHK body shots, but only 5 people in the game used it, does that mean it isn't imbalanced? Do we wait for everyone else to exploit it before making a change? I made the video to give a glimpse into how easy and risk-free it was to spam rockets at everything without using my LMG except in dire circumstances. And Higby/SOE are not stupid, they know that a single montage isn't a fair or representative sample of actual gameplay. It's just an eye-opener, nothing more. Game balance ultimately falls upon hard data and intentional design choices.

They already made a change that seemed to address the "rocket primary" - Flak5 prevents a direct hit from killing, and the splash is much less so you don't get 3 kills each time you blindly fire into a crowded room. You see a lot less HA's blindly rounding corners shooting rockets, and a lot more focused fire on maxes with rockets. I think it was a modest but reasonable change. You could argue SOE needed to go further, but I am not someone who believes in extremes, and was happy to see the change that went live.

The answer to your third question is no. We shouldn't balance strictly around the best players. But I don't think that is what happened here.