Producer's Letter: Weekly Updates

Get a better computer/internet connection?

I support this game as much as possible I recommend it to friends all the time. I buy armours and camo. And this most likely is the best mmo ever. But stop nerfing the VS and NC guns!

If you want to encourage people to test, then you also might think about setting the baseline XP and resource gain rates on the test server equal to what they are on live for Auraxium level subscribers using a Heroic boost.

This would not be a reward in itself most of the time, but if you do something like I mentioned above for double or triple XP weekends on test, where certs earned during that designated period can be rolled over to live characters, then it would make those special weekends even more attractive for free members than for subscribers.

It also would be kind of a subtle selling push for any free members who do play on test, since they would see how much faster the progress is with a membership and boost.

This has nothing to do with connection or computer.

Thanks for taking your time to make this announcement and communicating to the community. Letting us know, and I'm sure you guys know this, is a key factor in educating the community on what's actually happening and leaving silly speculation out of the picture.

I don't use the PTS but I support the game : it's an incredible game and the maps are wonderful !

More than the bases (some are really excellents, especially on Amerish, and the base design is constantly improving), the landscape is a total blast : very nice but also allowing some of the best fights we can have ; far from bases sometimes but, unfortunately, not enough often. I hope the new alerts give us the opportunity to have a reason to fight more in the "wilderness".

Beside that, it's good to see that updates will now be less broken. Please focus 1) on bug's fix and 2) on "quality of life" minor fix (I want an indicator of my mines, I want all the scopes availables on all guns, especially IR/NV, I want to be able to change the loadout of my ESF on an air pad, like on a terminal when I play infantry, I want to have the stats of all attachments to make good choices, etc...).

Thank you for this, I was getting annoyed by all the "SOE does not care" stuff people were saying. Also, Its nice to finally see some people that realize they're not putting out quality content because its rushed. Hopefully this will help us keep the players that come back to check in on the Hossin update and see if PS2 has improved since they quit. Only thing I can think of now is taking a break from new content to smooth out all the bugs. Maybe one week where you advertize bug reporting and get all of those old bugs such as the landing gear one removed.

In order for the test server to useful you really need to work on the patch notes.

The patch notes are usually incomplete, vague and don't get updated each time there are changes.

Here are a few examples:

Straight Bolt Pull - What happened to this ?

MCG - nothing has ever been posted about it in the patch notes.

Any chance on getting the Lodestar from Planetside 1? I have an urge to transport vehicles across vast distances. =) Oh, and vehicles using warpgates to teleport between continents!

Honestly I think you guys should hold off on more content updates and focus on bug fixes. Major bugs like the invulnerability bug needs to get fixed and the Warpgate invincibility enabled once again. It's getting kinda annoying when you pull a Lib and an ******* flies their Gal into your lib and it gets destroyed. Or getting knifed by friendlies.

Adding more and more content on top of bugs is really just making it worse..
I'm glad you guys held off on this update.

great.... Go ahead and fix the duster please.

No offense, but Weekly or even Bi-Weekly updating is a destructive gimmick and ill-fitting for the MMO industry. Old Schoolers aren't falling for it. Many of us GuildWars fans were extremely critical of ArenaNet when they popularized this stupid Fad. It didn't work out for them. Those of us who watch their Quarterly reports like hawks already knew this over a year ago.

Giving the updates extra time on the test server however is GOOD. Infact it's better than good!. Please keep doing that. And please reconsider making the Empire-Specific Sniper-Rifles a bigger priority for rebalancing as all 3 of them are among the biggest casualties of this hectic Updating schedule and were infact considered "Bait and Switch" Products due to their last-minute nerfings/alteration on the Test server right before it was forced Live (And don't forget the Duster either! ... if you want to rebuild trust, you have to finish what was left unfinished first, not just ship even more reskins of guns we already have)

I'd love a Bi-weekly update, weekly is just too much, the game is so damm broken right now, it's unplayable.
I'm definitely not going to ask my friends to come back when the first thing they'll do is either crash or have a random Ping of 999999999999999 all of a sudden.
(The patchnotest on april 1st about crash fixes really was a terrible joke, guys)

Fix the game SOE, PLEASE. I love this game, but I'm not going to play it, or even spend a single buck on it, until i actually CAN play it.

Also Hit Detection is even worse that it was before, at least for me.

Does this mean the Nvidia driver joke is going to get fixed, commented or in any shape and form release some updated information to the THOUSANDS of players unable to update their GFX drivers?

Its hard to promote a game to friends, stream or make videos when its not even possible to make videos, stream(shadowplay) or get up to date drivers for your hardware if you play the game.

You think anyone would keep playing the game if it crashes every few minutes?
You think anyone would bother to downgrade their GFX driver to even test the game further after having the game crash every few minutes as their first experience with it?

I would hope not, now you know what should have been priority #1, 2, 3, 4 all the way down to 50 to get fixed, weeks ago. If its not something "you" can fix and its Nvidia that is dropping the ball then you should at the very least give out some update about it because as you probably can tell people are getting quite fed up with this radio silence crap.

Nvidia is working on it and we don't have anything more specific than that.

As soon as we do, it will go up here: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/major-live-issues.179848/

We start characters with a ton of certs on Test, which should help.

We're not doing exactly what you've mentioned, but we do plan to give some Live rewards for Test assistance.

Please read as constructive criticism as it's intended.
I am delighted that the weekly patching is moving towards playable patching.
Would like to say that - in my view - hold up on patches, combine them into bigger patches and release updates that match the other pieces.
It has felt like that game is moving forward piece meal and with each patch introduction some form of balance is thrown out of tilt with the next changing the balance of something else and that players are always playing against the current patch and not the game as a whole.
I would love to see fewer patches and more completed bigger all inclusive patches that keep balance more stable.

i finally feel less pissed off about stuff. Its like, you guys finally heard the fact that were mad as hell about the constant rushing out content which resulted in broken elements resulting in tons of damage control patches to unbreak more functions which broken even further things. Bout time you guys got back on the track, now i dont have a reason to whine. Thanks. Oh and... another serious irk though, what happens to the players to are premium and lost much subscription time thanks to all the rushed out content that resulted in damage control? Might be a rude question to ask, but someone hasta ask and and probably many wanna know, or few will even openly ask in fear of being flamed to hell and back. Anyways thanks, for this time paying attention to the extremely upset community. You actually got All 3 factions to stop hating each other for once and hate on the development. Crappy way to unite us though, seriously.

Thats the thing though, you shouldnt have to give insentives for people to go onto the test server. The players are the ones who asked for a test server in the first place, now some are asking for compensation too? And people say corporations are greedy...

Now i gotta admit i had to smirk about the self aware upgrade now joking. :J

However, it feels kinda odd at the same time, because while you are acknowledging the problem, the upgrade now button still is there looking more cheap then ever. That is a bit weird...
It's like someone does something monumentally stupid, people make fun of him, he realizes that and also makes jokes about his stupid behaviour, but keeps on doing it, But you didn't seriously ask for monetary support in this very thread atleast, so i stand by my smirking in the end.

But now for some thumbs up; Encouraging testing instead of forcing it upon everyone (atleast that's the impression i got there). That is a good thing. If nobody ever visits the test server, make it attractive to do so (custom titles for your live character come to mind) instead of just using the (possibly paying) live server players as playtesters.
I also absolutely appreciate what essentially boils down to "less updates, but more refined/stable ones". That is also good. If you can answer the question "does this feature in its current state obstruct the gameplay on live" with "no", then it's good to go on live. And if you answered that question with "no" for the mission system...well then we have to talk.

And lastly, some brutal honesty: This is not yet the planetside experience i was hoping for, imo it's debatable if it's planetside or even a "MMO"-FPS at all in its current state. So far it has been underwhelming in every category that is not "shoot the other guys".
But it still has the potential to become that "planetside" experience of being more than just a shooter. It's just a darn underachiever so far.
Allways remember, aslong as we are ******** about PS2 on these forums we are still here and passionate about the game. And if you get it to a state where i can proudly call it "Planetside" i will support the hell out of it. And who knows, maybe hit the "Upgrade Now" button not by accident, but to renew my subscription.

I sincerely wish you best of luck with this project and i hope you still enjoy working on it.