I hate Performance Update 1

Disclosure: I'm going to start out by warning you that this is a bit of a rage. I do have what I feel to be some meaningful points in here, and I would much appreciate it if you guys would at least scan through and give me feedback.

As a player cursed with a POS of a computer, I was obviously very excited about the performance updates, even though there was some skepticism on the forums about the effect they would really have.

Logging on today, I noticed they had finally instituted the first of several upcoming patches, Performance Update 1 (PU01). While the majority of the information on the patch related directly to performance issues, there were several other easily overseen changes as well.

While the patch did seem to make a marginal difference in my frame rate,these are the changes I primarily noticed:

• The HUD is completely revamped: Instead of the neat orange, blue, and green boxes indicating ammo, shield, and health, I was met with an abomination- the HUD has been changed to be smooth solid blocks that look and feel extremely derpy, especially when taking damage.
• Squad Deploy no longer works: Previously, the squad deploy function acted similarly to instant action: once clicked, it would spawn you in a drop pod directly above your squad leader. Now, it’s next to worthless, simply spawning you at the nearest real spawn point- i.e. beacons, friendly sundies, or adjacent bases. To make matters worse, it also still has a reset timer, depriving you of potentially valuable instant actions.
• Drop pods have been substantially altered: According to the update, their vertical velocity has been increased while their horizontal motion (your only control) has been greatly reduced. On top of this, even their collision damage has been reduced (say goodbye to instagibbing enemy libs and esfs ) While initially skeptical, I found this made a substantial difference when I completely missed the enemy tower I was attempting to land on with a drop pod and plummeted into the middle of an NC zerg.

I find these 3 changes seriously alter my gameplay, and not for the better.
As I'm running on ultra low at literally 15-20 fps, my surest method of obtaining a decent kd is creativity: getting behind enemy lines and in unsuspected or unusual places so I could get kills on targets that aren't fighting back. To this end, drop pods (instant action, former squad deploy, spawn beacons) are a crucial part of my game. I also found the new HUD to be visually distracting.
Today, I played for close to 90 minutes of planetside, killed 19 people, earned only 44 certs (I don't have any boosters) and had an ending kd of a measly 0.41. Normally, my kd hovers between 2-3 and I earn 44 certs in a half hour. I'm not sure if it was just an offnight, but I am of the personal opinion that the drop pod nerfs had a substantial effect on my gameplay. Also the HUD just plain sucks . I just wanted to share my story and ask you, my fellow players, to share your own opionons.
Even if you only scanned this, to that end, I'd like to know your thoughts on drop pods, the "improved" HUD, and any other aspects of the patch you like/don't like.
Please take the time to bump this thread or leave a comment.
Thanks for reading!

nothing?

I think that was the point lol.

OP: They focused on these machines "...the machines that more than 80% of our player base had, which is quad-core or above, AMD and Intel, 4G or more RAM, Windows 64-bit, AMD and nVidia GPUs. "
Simply put, a POS is still a POS no matter what anyone says or does to it; it may be time to just get a new computer or move on?

Ooops lol sorry guys I forgot to post the 2nd half of my thread. It has now been updated for anyone out their wondering what the fudge I'm doing.

Yeah sorry man, you got to my post before I realized my mistake and updated it. Its actually ******** about the gameplay changes rather than the actual performance changes.

A. HUD is a matter of personal preference, and I can't see why you would stop playing a game just because you dislike the look of a the HUD slightly.

B. Drop pods and squad deploy were broken, just plain broken. They allowed platoons to continue spawning on zombie leaders or lone survivors with impunity even when an assault had failed. Squad deploy was the fastest way of moving around the map bar none and completely usurped the purpose of the Galaxy. I, for one, am extremely happy with these changes.

I personally have to disagree with you on the drop pods issue, for the reasons stated above. I could however understand how it could be abused, but you must admit its the best feeling in the world to accidentally cream some random *** esf while deploying.
Additionally, do you know how to change the HUD? Its not a reason for me to quit lol, but I personally think it sucks ***.

i think the main reason they changed the squad deploy mechanics is due to people abusing how it worked.

quite a few times i noted that squad leaders would just stay dead and act as an indestructible spawn beacon with a 5 minute respawn time. i dunno bout you, but thats some major bull. put on top of that you could also have a squad beacon down at the same time allowing for quick movement between two points that could be across the map if necessary.

and on drop pods, half the time you could just setup the beacon towards the edge of a base and be able to drop at least half the distance across a base, meaning it was moderately harder to determine where the beacon was to shut it down. also i dunno how long its been since you played but i havent seen anything die to a drop pod in months.

Would you mind giving us specs on said POS computer?

I have nothing but good impressions of the revamp. Loving HUD, stable FPS, end of drop pod spam, new fonts, new kill feed, everything.

I just wish they fixed the randomly appearing problem of being unable to log onto EU servers, inactive terminals and disconnects.

But the patch, is good. I get 45 fps minimum in 48+ bio lab fights now, that is just magic.

Sure- gimme a sec-
I believe its just a generic hp desktop. It's not intended at all for gaming.
Processor: intel i5-2400 (middle range quad core)
8 GB dedicated RAM
1 TB hardrive
And.... (drumroll please)
Intel integrated HD graphics! DAAAYUMMM.

It's also worth mentioning that I've got extremely good Internet connection and when i play on friends computers (all of which are good) I average around a 5-8 kd.
Any feedback would be appreciated.

Yeah personally I hate the HUD but whatever- may I ask what computer you're running the game on?

This was done to save a tiny amount of assets from the HUD processing.

This was done as it was a free Squad Beacon and it shouldn't be. The lack of placement control for instant action (can't even pick the base) is it's downside, and so can't be exploited particularly when .....

This was done because it was too easy to use Drop Pods to take out aircraft and drop right on top of enemy sundies with 3 land mines

You are looking at it from one perspective only: yours, the average ground troop and not at the greater picture.

Look at it in terms of the defenders: The previous system allowed the squad leader to easily make someone else in their squad the new squad leader and squad deploy on them and this happened often (I did it too when I led squads), which ensured that unless you kill the entire squad completely (100%) within a certain amount of time (because other people have their squad deploy timers counting down already), you would never truly hold off an assault.

As stated by someone else above, this system of continually switching squad leads, having dead squad leads just stay there at the base allowed for a near unlimited supply of men directly to the front with no support from galaxies or sunderers. It was far too convenient and far too quick. You can't 'counter' squad deploys as you can counter sunderers and galaxies with rockets.

In regards to drop pods: again, you are only looking at it from one perspective. While it is nice to score the occasional drop pod kill you need to understand why it was unfair from the perspective of the occupants of the vehicle in that:

1) There was no 'hard' counter to it, there was simply no warning sign that it would happen. You could lose a 300 resource vehicle within under a minute of spawning to someone who just deployed from half way across the map, this would've been incredibly frustrating for new players who havn't certed into acquisition timers.

We're talking 10+ minutes of waiting after an instant death with no counter.

2) A player's choice to remain hovering is the player's choice alone, gameplay/behaviours themselves shouldn't have been punished directly (as it was) by this system.

3) Another thing about the drop pods; because of the way render mechanics are, players who dropped ontop of vehicles were able to deploy mines before they (the player) actually rendered.

Your lack of dedicated graphics card is your issue. Im running an AMD 955 which has less performance than a i5 2400, with an GTX 660ti. Im getting 50+ frames now on ultra preset (everything maxed), though i did overclock and tune all of my system to get there. So i would bet if you hit ALT-F to show FPS it would state [gpu] as your bottleneck. Intel HD 2000 are terrible intigrated graphics. Even the 4000 line in the newer high end chips are dreadful as well, partially the reason why AMDs APU are really a go to for HTPCs.

You may want to purchase a video card, not a bad time with black Friday coming up really. AMD 7770s are under 100 bucks and pretty decent.


Also you may want to talk about the drop pod changes and HUD in another thread otherwise your going to have many different conversations going on. The mods are more likely to close a thread that goes off in a million directions.

you shouldn't expect to be playing games like this honestly...

is it a laptop?

Can't argue with this.

While it shouldn't have a cooldown tied to IA, this change was for the better.

Having the ability to just constantly come back with no beacon was just straight up dumb.

Again, this is for the better. Drop pods being able to chase libs and esfs around was dumb, and being able to drop huge groups of people on positions nowhere near the spawn beacon and completely bypass defenses for zero resource cost was silly.

The change to the squad deploy is one of the best changes made to date. Drop pods raining in on a dead squad leader is borderline offensive based on the rest of the deployment mechanics.

The only thing that has upset me so far is how ugly more poor, sweet, fat Galaxy looks now. I only bought vehicle camo to put it on my Galaxy. They all look terrible now. Really, really horrible. Sorry art guys, I know you tried. But the stock blue with every camo I've bought is just a horrible mess.

I app

Hmm yeah it is from the 4000 series I believe. Since it is a small case, I don't really have any room to customize and instead I'm simply going to build a computer with my friend this christmas for around 1000 dollars. Being in my early teens though I'm kinda strapped for cash so it might be hard. Its very impressive you get those results given your computer stats. Additionally I really appreciate your advice about the thread this is my first so I'm just gonna let it run its course.

Btw are you on connery? We should play sometime when I'm being reasonably decent.