PTS Patch Notes - 3/11

Discussion in 'Test Server: Announcements' started by PS2_Luke, Mar 11, 2015.

  1. salembeats

    Who said anything about certs? I have so many that I don't even know what to spend mine on anymore. I just want to shoot at people! This is a FPS game after all, right? The whole point of playing a game is to overcome some adversity on your way to victory. "Victory" without a challenge is boring.

    What I'm getting at is implicated in the question I asked towards the end of my post:

    You could have done the same exact thing with a Galaxy floating at the flight ceiling, with the exact same outcome.
    Could have done the same thing with Libs, too.
    You said "We didn't get shot at because I had Stealth."
    Regardless of whether or not that's true, the Valkyrie isn't the only vehicle in the game with a Stealth cert-line.

    What is it that you said towards the beginning of your video again?
    "I hope we don't get caught in that Scythe storm."
    If even one ESF roaming the skies had decided to look your way, your entire 6-person crew would've been dead meat.
    Your video was mildly entertaining (if I were newer to the game, I might be basking in the "awesomeness"), but it's not an appropriate example to demonstrate that the Valkyrie is balanced properly.

    P.S.,
    I hate to be a real buzzkill but...
    When you started your video, the TR attackers had the high pop in the hex.
    By the time you pulled your Vakyrie, the NC defenders had gained the high pop.
    It's pretty much impossible to lose the crown with high pop unless you're facing an organized group of MLG-level players, so the fight was basically already won before you even showed up.
  2. witsche

    My game Crushed every time if i log in
  3. MrJengles

    THANK YOU!

    How thoughtful :)
  4. Scr1nRusher



    Thats a bug fix. They weren't receiving XP in those situations & now thanks to the bugfix they are getting XP.
  5. Scr1nRusher

    Also DBG if your reading this, I have 1 very simple Valk change that everyone has been asking for since day 1.

    Make the Squad Logistics a Passive/built in/automatic system.
  6. davidr64


    You have no way of knowing that. You're not some Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters X-Men mutant who can see alternate outcomes. :) Also, the evidence certainly doesn't back you up!

    Thank you. :)

    I feel like because you're not newer to the game, you're pessimistic about it. I've seen reviews on Steam from people with like 2000 hours in a game, and they rate it negatively, making sure not to recommend it. The fact is, if someone's got 2000 hours in a game, they enjoyed it. People don't willingly invest thousands of hours into something they don't enjoy. But still, these people will rate what was probably once their favorite game very negatively.

    Don't let that happen to you. You're right—what we did could be accomplished a number of ways. This was our way. And it illustrates that the Valkyrie holds up among all those other ways, not above nor below them. It's just well designed. Maybe the Valkyrie needs tweaking (and that's what DBG is doing). But the transport's not so far out of balance that it needs anything major done to it. Used properly it's a very powerful vehicle. Just like any gun, vehicle, class, squad, platoon, outfit, deployable, et cetera. That's the idea in Planetside 2. Used properly, in the right situation, everything can be extremely powerful; just as the Valkyrie was in the video.

    We don't want to do three 2-man libs. Some of us don't enjoy piloting. We don't want to pull a very vulnerable Galaxy for a half a squad. Our invisible Valkyrie play is much more powerful than the very noticeable Battle Galaxies you see out there.

    We picked what was right for us, and what we find fun. What is your problem with that, exactly? haha

    That was a rhetorical question; don't answer it.

    Fact is, the game does have multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. And no, our Valkyrie was not the sole reason we saved The Crown. We can blow up sundies all day, but without the rest of the NC on the ground pushing points, what we're doing is meaningless. We need most of those blue doods shooting purple doods and red doods.

    But yes, it was we who gave the NC the opportunity to win that fight. We made a decisive, very well-executed blow to the enemy. It's something we've practiced, it's something we're good at, and it's something we hope to improve upon and keep in our playbook. As a group, that's fun for us. We have a great time with the game.

    But you're ragging hard all over what is essentially just a fun experience with a good vehicle, and you're doing it to assert a point that, in your opinion, the Valkyrie is underpowered or detrimentally broken in some fashion, despite evidence showing that's not the case.

    I really have said all I want to say about this topic. The video speaks for itself, I feel, and I'm not interested in being pulled further down into what we both know—if we continue—will probably be just another pointless Internet debate. We'll just both be restating the same things we've already said, just in different ways. So, for my part at least, I'll close this off here.

    glhf

    P.S. Here's more badassery if you're interested, except this time it's against the Vanu. To show there's no hard feelings. :)
  7. salembeats


    Sure, I could sort through all of my capture footage and find killstreaks against <BR10 players which would make even the Candy Cannon joke pistol look OP.

    You can do whatever you want and I have no reason to have a problem with that.

    What I'm telling you, though, is that your single video should have been titled something along the lines of "The One Time We Were Lucky Enough That Nobody Shot At Us (At One Of The Few Bases With Effective Aircraft Cover)".

    It's certainly not evidence that the Valkyrie is sufficiently survivable -- which is what we've been talking about from the start.
    Outliers don't serve as "evidence" for a balance discussion.


    Sigh... :rolleyes:
  8. KoRneY

    Yeah... I agree with Salem. The self importance was a little high.

    Also, nearly @ 2,000 hours. Love this game.
  9. TommyZakh

    I wish I could upvote this update more than once.
  10. TommyZakh

    Also, WHEN ARE WE GETTING VALKYRIE CLOAKING!?!?!

    please? pretty please?

    It honestly does not have to be amazing, just have it as a cool thing that only the Valk can do. Add this, and all the other Valk balance problems will vanish.
    • Up x 2
  11. Dominicinator

    Not sure if we post bugs/overlookings here, I guess this could be moved if not. A few things I've noticed:
    -Blackhand can be scoped while Jetpacking/In the air.
    -Various bugs inside Terminals where a headless copy of the player would show up inside the real one, your player would magically turn female... etc.
    -Friendly fire is on in Koltyr Warpgate.
  12. Takoita

    ...I must confess I thought the way the right arm of a MAX skipped running and reloading animations every so often was a feature.
    • Up x 1
  13. Tertiary


    Oh, wow, yeah... actually agree with that. Because of the speed of the Valk this would take rather a lot of resources, though... but, a 3 second cloak (after max certs)? Make auto-cloak the auto-slot on the valk, not deployment, and you'll have a solid, unique vehicle filling its own specific role in the best way possible.
  14. Nataszeya

    I'm barely into Koltyr and this place gives me a headache.

    Not having the usual no-damage inside the warp gate/spawn point is just resulting in a lot of unproductive Daltons. The new player experience would be catastrophic. Better odds if your first login was in a drop pod.

    The tutorial popups are really the worst of my headache. There's no way to dismiss them, or get them back if you do. Since the first one popped up when I went to the map, it also covered but didn't prevent interaction with the stats/filter/legend/search buttons. So I'm clicking it to get it to go away, and it's registering everything on the UI.

    It needs a less intrusive design, like a pulsating question mark when you're on a screen with a free cursor, or an obvious key activation when in shooting view. Something that directs the user to action to guide them through learning the game would be better than just popping up something when they happen to change views. "Press M to bring up the map, also located at the glowing icon at the bottom menu" for example.
  15. Jeslis


    .. did you even read what you typed?

    .. and you got ALL of that from 1 sentence (barely) from me?

    This is me, giving up.
  16. lothbrook

    Oh jesus this David guy is high, 6 people working together can kill sunderers in massive numbers, i'd go as far as to say they picked the slowest way, hell i think if you pulled 6 stealth flashes with furies you could have done it faster, lol.
  17. Brightconn

    I would like to put additional feedback about the valk. It is a great vehicle and the changes are, for the most part, awesome. I would like to make a request that in these changes the range of thermals for the gun sights be extended out beyond 50m. They are by far the weakest thermals in the game. Given the slow acceleration, lack of even a limited afterburner, and prone to damage from the most prevalent weapons systems in the game( small arms) coming in to drop and then stay on site to provide CAS within 50m of a drop is near suicide. An increase out to 100m at least would be nice. Especially when you take into account that thermals on the close quarters combat vehicle(harasser), ground equivalent to valk, are 180m. Even for the now incredibly in your face to be effective PPA.

    The hellion changes are right up the road of what it needs. Near spot on, except its terrible velocity can make it hard for gunners to track targets given the valk. in most situations has to keep moving over the target site. Request that the velocity be considered to be moved up to the range of 370m/s to help mitigate the added compensation calculations airborne gunners have to overcome. Given the weapons platform is also considerably more exposed and vulnerable than its ground role equivalent of harasser with Vulcan. I would ask it be considered to reduce the natural reload down to be more in line with said equivalent. Which boasts a reload of 2.5 on a full rather than 3.5 despite the additional 30 rounds to its natural magazine, an increase of 10 from the hellions fully extended mag.

    Again to reference the flight compensation air gunners need to account for and the need for the valk to stay mobile while on site. I would ask that the VLG be considered to have a faster projectile velocity. Other wire guided systems, the hornets excluded are stationary and do not require compensation for changing perspectives on the projectile. Given the reload and damage output is roughly spot on with mana av and hornets for TTK a faster velocity would only serve to make gunning the VLG manageable in a combat situation.

    With regards to the CAS weapons system, I would like to say the increased inner is nice. However, given 0.35m is no more than roughly the length of a forearm which means in terms of splashing multiple targets, unless they are humping one another, it wont matter. Says to me that this buff is intended to decrease focused single target TTK. This effect would be more readily and effective made by increasing the weapons systems accuracy to allow for less wild shots off target and more hits/inner misses( inner splash radius). I would request the accuracy be brought in closer to the wyvern which has trouble hitting a single target for most gunners I get but does inner miss enough. Allowing a gunner to potentially fell a single target with a CAS over a wyvern. As it stands the accuracy and damage of direct hits with wyvern makes it a more reliable anti-infantry option. Stepping back to the valks vulnerability and suggested role, via description, as a close air support unit. The ability to drop a couple targets with a largely dedicated anti-infantry weapon given its aweful damage output on vehicles would not be overpowering as after dropping troops and Close Air Support clearing the drop site for those troop it would have to pull out or die. This would allow the valk to more effectively achieve its CAS role while using a CAS weapon. When troops need dropping this weapon should perform at clearing afew targets quickly enough to allow the troops to not drop into their deaths. Note this weapon though having a long magazine, which the valk sparsely has time to get through before needing to pull out, lacks the rpm its sister the Banshee has to cause enough inner misses amidst the broad misses to net the kills to clear site within its window, having the same accuracy. It also even after this change lacks the max damage output by 25 and outer by 9 in its splash. Considering the RoF difference and dmg difference as well as it BEING a CAS vehicle and not an Air Superiority vehicle wyverns accuracy with the lower RoF, softer damage, and larger mag would provide a legitimate short window sustainable CAS while drops take a foothold.

    Brings me to another point to consider. The rather high downward angle that rumble seat users have. With close seeming to be the center in mid for this nimble but frail craft and dropping troops being one of its key utilities. It is mildly shameful that those troops cannot aim down far enough to engage troops within the inner radius of their drop zone. Instead can only engage targets toward the outer radius of a drop zone hoping the nose gun will be able to clear and soften enough target on the drop zone for them to not die when boots touch ground. With the underwhelming performance of nose guns, even CAS gun, at clearing drop zones the troops are kissing their rabbits feet and clovers before hitting E. Consider allowing 10-15 more degrees of downward aim so they can even if not engage but identify targets in the inner radius before they drop.

    I would also ask that instead of making a stable hover come from passive vertical thrust increase via hover stability that it just be made natural. Out of all the aircraft the valk is ridiculously affected by being put into fire due to its innate lack of passive vertical thrust. ESFs can stay afloat due to flight mode making them have beyond perfect hover capability. Librators have enough natural to not drop like a rock, as do gals. The valk though is a reenactment of black hawk down every time the fire barely hits. Given the low and close nature of flying a valk for any kind of CAS this almost always means kissing the deck. Due to the high visibility of air vehicles and frail nature of the valk that passive vertical thrust needed to hover only really comes into play in not dropping from the sky like a flaming bag of dog poo rather than the valk really having any role every hovering in place over a fight. 1-12 possibly excluded but any vehicle or max in a 1-12 is almost always overkill granted a semi-average player is operating it.

    Only other thing I could say is to make valk composite like harasser composite and provide a universal damage resistance increase. If not that then a mild buff to small arms resistance naturally and allow composite to have a resistance increase to rockets. Having a CAS vehicle dying as fast as it does to small arms, again most prevalent weapons system in the game, and then near to over half healthed by rocket systems which are free to anyone playing heavy. Which I add is a significant number in most fights. Is devastating to the valks ability to provide its intended role more than once. I personally fail to think any vehicle should be treated let alone designed to be so outright disposable.

    All of this being said, I use the valk A LOT and find it to be the most fun thing to work with in the game despite specific elements, mainly those mentioned, are underwhelming if not outright draw backs. None of these suggests do I believe would make this weapons platform overpowered, nor would I want them to as it would make this vehicle far less fun. All are suggested to better gear the Valkyrie into its CAS role without letting it be sustainable enough to be a drop gunship, we have gals with bulldogs for that, and without giving it an unnecessarily high effectiveness against infantry during CAS. Enough though that it can perform its duty, which does mean being able to kill some infantry per drop for the sake of clearing site and being a true CAS. All of this is also assuming CAS is the Valkyries intended role based solely on the vehicles description in the in-game stats window.
  18. ZuluEx

    Dat nerf doe... :(