Haven't played since Spring 2013. Starting to miss the mindless fun of an open battlefield. Hit the key points, hit the small details, or cover something painfully specific and not very broad at all because all that other stuff isn't nearly as interesting. What I know: PS2 Skins = TF2 hats New continent is out finally? Last updates I remember: Those 3-man assault vehicles, whatever they were. NC-MAX Ravens The map FROZEN was based off of had just received it's battle pathing (whatever that was called, made it so you have to cap in a certain order) If SOE did some sort of cumulative post on updates or maintains one then point me in its direction. Otherwise I'd rather not sift through hundreds? of pages of patches.
Every aspect of the game has changed. Sony incorporated player studio. This allows skilled fans to create and sell hats, and camos on the marketplace and in return they get a share of the earnings. A fantastic change since some of the best cosmetics are player created. SOE added really nice vehicle horns, and lumifiber to make things glow. A swamp like continent was added called Hossin. It boasts more cover objects and better base designs, fog, and a really neat glowing plants. So that means we have 4 continents now, Indar (desert) Esamir (snow) Amerish (Rocky Paradise). In a few patches they will be releasing a new continent just for low Battle Ranked players. Its small and kind of looks like a mixture between Esamir and Amerish. On Live servers there is also a VR room where you can equip and test every single item in the game without having to buy it. This includes having attachments and target dummies to shoot on. You can also test vehicles out as well. A public test server (PTR) was added so anyone can go and check out up and coming content and help SOE test before it hits the live servers. The Flash was redone to have a second seat, and they also adjusted it to face forward for more fun times. The Harasser was added, which is like a 3 seated flash on steroids. Lightnings got Lumifiber so they can glow now and look amazing Main Battle tanks have had their abilities tweaked so you might notice a few changes to how you remembered them originally. Sundies no longer have to purchase the AMS to spawn troops. Its a built in feature, however red zones around capture points prevent people from parking and spawning players inside those zones. You have to park outside the red area to activate the AMS. Sundies also got new abilities to help make them harder targets against solo lone wolf players with explosives. Fighters (ESF) were changed in too many ways to recall. Test these out in the VR. New Air vehicle : The Valkyrie (small troop transport) Galaxy changes: Squad spawning was added to the game. Its possible to spawn inside Galaxy and also Sundies as long as a squad member occupies one of the seats. The Valkyrie can also be used for this as well. Drop pods: You can no longer control the drop pod like previously, and it doesn't spin as you come down anymore. Radar: Unmanned Radar Flashes won't work now. Someone has to sit inside of them for it to be "on". You can also stay perfectly still and not be detected by any form of radar. Its safe to crouch walk and move around as well. Normal walking, sprinting, jumping, or jet pack will trigger detection on radar if its active in your location. Medics got a new bubble that helps regenerate shields. They place the device on the ground to create a regeneration field. Engineers got a new Turret: Spitfire (aka: Beepy Turret) is automated and will act as warning device and combat aid. Anti Infantry Mines: Now have lights on them which blink, giving you a chance to avoid them on the ground. Except TR clay-mores the green lights on those were removed but they are still directional. Betties and Proxies still have a circular blast. Infiltrators got a new Radar Tool : Motion Spotter (works like darts but shows up like when you spot someone) Can be placed on the ground where the infil is standing but lasts a while longer then darts do. New weapons were added for pretty much every class, and adjustments were made to existing weapons. I advise going into the VR room and testing things out. Crossbows were added as a new pistol type. Infiltrators cloaking is now the same across all graphic settings, so you don't need to be on high or low to see them or try and get any advantages by tweaking your settings. They also were given colors so you could easily tell a friendly infiltrator apart from an enemy one. Any blur you see is assured to be an enemy infiltrator now. Stalker cloak was added to the game. This takes away the infiltrators primary weapon, but allows them to cloak forever but they only have a pistol (or crossbow) , knife, and possibly proxy mines at their disposal. You can easily find them by using a new "Darklight" which replaced standard flashlights. Dark-lights will illuminate even deep cloaked infiltrators so you can find and kill them. Beware they may also give away your friendly infiltrators position so be careful where you shine it. New knives were added to the game, they function very differently then traditional knives. Pressing B activates the knife creating loud sound and doubling its damage. Changes made also mean its possible to headshot with both types of knives for x1.5 damage. You can also hold a knife in your hands and slash back and forth quickly with it. Directives (Achievements) were added to the game. They also have some nice weapon, and camo rewards too. Implants were added to the game. You don't need them, but they are nice to have and come in several different levels of quality. The higher the quality the more energy it costs to keep running the implant. I personally have no problem using lower quality implants for most of my play sessions , and switch to higher quality ones during group activities. They can be used in many different loadouts and won't be destroyed unless you break them down for energy. They can be obtained freely by killing enemies or earning exp from any source. The Lattice: You can no longer overload generators without a connection to your empire. As long as no points at your empires location are contested you can progress down the next lattice link. Large fights are much more common because of this.
People still gather in zergs and capture bases by holding points and the battle mostly consists of aiming your gun at the spawn room while waiting for the timer, or the defenders suddenly deploy 999 players from all across the map and kills you. People still participate in laggy over sized stale mates. You wish there was rule that made both teams die if they don't kill the other within X minutes. Available continents changes depending on population to keep a constant player density.
The only "New" things added since this guy played, was the Lattice being finished, several continenents completely revamped, and the stupid Valkyrie. Nothing else ground shattering actually happened assuming he missed the entire ZOE-max debacle. Also Ribbons.... Yeah Ribbons.... it sounds stupid but it was a huge XP boost that almsot makes up for how Chinese-Sweatshoppy the Grind in this game really used to be. And by that I mean when you divide up 700sc factoed by US standard hour min wage by how long it takes to earn 1000 certs prior .... you're looking at a really meager return for your time investment (which could have been intentional from the start to combat Farmers growing and then selling accounts) . Empire specific Snipers & Handguns were added too, but they're all downgrades except for the Spiker
That's like asking if birds fly, grass grows, and if scout hurts people. The answer is yes, the game has changed. Has the meta completely shifted? Nope. Has something groundbreak occurred? Somewhat, Continent Locking was added and erased Indarside for good. Has anything important occurred? O:MFG and Hossin were pretty major, along with all continents now having Lattice. So yes, things have changed. However nothing crazy or massive has happened (from what the community sees anyway...)
