Sept. 23, 2022 - PTS Update

Construction changes sound good.
Please update grenade physics, it's like trying to throw a bouncy ball accurately.
Corsair submerging... so it's a boat that can go under water, we have quadbikes that can drive along the surface, aircraft that can fly under the surface, oh and you sink like a stone if you jump in the water - no swimming. No wonder new players are confused by this game XD

So is the goal to neuter construction to a state that isn't useful? AI modules removed means a single infiltrator with an 80$ knife can now stab the base to death with no impunity ( pain spires gone as well ) the millisecond no one is there, base is gone basically.

Construction can't be placed at designer bases, and now unless you have multiple hands on deck to defend your base, have fun dying to any MBT or A2G that pops up. Especially since you know, construction is relegated to the sidelines and where the No Construction zones even allow.

Unless there is a plan to integrate construction into the main gameplay loop ( closer to designer bases ) this is a nerf to an already niche playstyle within Planetside and just sad really.

Okay I have so many questions.
Why is construction being nerfed? I honesty do not understand why any of those changes are being made. Pain Spires are not a pain to kill in the slightest, a single cortium bomb takes them out, so why the removal? It isn't like killing bases was that difficult, but now that AI is gone too, there is nothing stopping one player from killing the entire base with little resistance. Why kill an already super niche playstyle? Everything else is fine, but why nerf construction this hard?

I will need all my construction purchases refunded since half of it is bought with daybreak cash, this is unacceptable. Construction was already in an absolute garbage state where a single dedicated stalker infiltrator with cortium wipes your base in minutes the second you leave to get cortium, now there's absolutely zero defense for construction. The fact that you don't even mention refunds in this post is worrying and I don't know if I can support a dev team like this.

This unapologetic gutting of defensive options and capabilities of construction is an embarrassment. Construction is already vastly underpowered and in a poor state without these significant changes. Especially to flail which is already heavily restricted in all gameplay.

Automation has been a significant part of base defense for sometime and now the buffs are apparently being added to only AI turrets, why not the others? The anti vehicle and anti air tower are already significantly underpowered and are beaten by a single liberator and MBT. Now they have to be manned and will still lose with no chance for the builder.

Construction is already considerably underwhelming in terms of rewards. Why should anyone even bother trying it. The rewards are pitiful. Construction had a place in the previous spawn system but now even that is gone.

Is this about desolation being able to function when ps2 is placed on maintenance? It keeps infantry sweats happy that they can continue to maintain complete control of the gameplay and continue to sideline creative players and older ps universe vets who don't have 20 year old gaming reflexes who are trying to help the server.

Sounds like construction is stuck on the chopping block.

-routers nerfed to within 500m (previously)
-flail darmage nerf
-pain spire gone
-ai module gone

What is the point of a construction base now?
-walls
-silo
-spawn tube
-vehicle pulls
-sky shield
-orbital

So you can build something to shoot at and spawn vehicles that has to be away from bases and cant orbital bases (unless you use a glitch).

Please consider:
Adding cortium silos to bases
Allowing modules/turrets to be built at main bases (after AI is removed) and not consume cortium (or consume base cortium if silo added)
Turning the pain spire into a cloak spire (which would cloak construction objects and vehicles/players in a large radius) This currently would also reveal cloaked infiltrators because thats what cloak bubbles do inherently.
Increasing the limitation on 1 of each turret that can be placed

At this rate you might as well remove construction in its entirety if you’re going to keep nerfing it and moving it’s perks to other areas in the game. Nerf after nerf and the team still finds ways to nerf it some more?
I have only ever seemed a fully manned base a few times, a number I can count on both my hands. Having AI modules let you know if the enemy was nearby at least, maybe even let you actually defend your base that you spent a whole hour mining and building. With this removal, it seems that there’s no point to build anything more than a small spawn point base.

I think this is Wrel listening to something kamikaze says often. I don't agree with him, my opinions have recently taken a major divergence. Right now, I think this game's main priority is to fix Connery's server infrastructure, so we can implement the 2020-2021 (at least while I've been here) spawn system, so we can get 50/50 fights back. While not as flashy as outfit wars, I really think that this will keep new players, as having fair fights show's what this game has to offer better imo. Wrel, if you read this, I know you can't please everyone. You're in a catch 22 situation most of the time, as this game is a massive sandbox, with competing playstyles. I hope that you're doing okay. I know the intention of this was probably good at heart, but as I can see from these other's, it seems like it's making the sytem worse. I think the idea that's been proposed to significantly shrink the area of no-construction zones has interesting potential. My fix (to be proactive) is to have a range of ~30-35 meters on the EMP tower, and have it disable cloaking devices (probably flashes too for consistency *shrug") For artillery, I have very rarely been hit by it, I think the main fix for that isn't to nerf it's damage, but to make it more visible where it's hitting, maybe a similar texture to Anvils for the area where it'll hit, that way it gives vehicles a warning to avoid it... I don't have any idea for how infantry will avoid it, but I personally miss the footzerg days of when I started, so I'll make another message when I have a practical idea for that. Also, if the codebase allows it, could you make the maneuverability of ESFs with A2G weapons ~20-30% less? I think that would make it more skill intensive for when the fighter needs to pull up from their bombardment. I do agree with the others, I think construction should play a bigger role than an aircraft pulling terminal, maybe bases near the frontlines increase the capture time of the region they're located in? I think that'd be really fun to work with. Thanks for reading anyone who's got this far, I want to give solutions to this. Please feel free to poke holes in anything I said, Although I may be a VS main, in reality I think dissent and discourse in the end come up with the best solutions. o7

I am puzzled by these changes to the construction. I'm waiting to see the results.

What kind of improvement will the AI bring to the turrets? Give us more information!

The new EMP Spire has a ridiculously small range for such a large size. Will the distance between each Spire remain the same or will you allow them to be a little closer together?

Having lost the Zone of Pain to protect the Spawntube, add a real building with a protected respawn chamber.
There is always inertia for the defenders to realize there is a fight and to start appearing. If a well-equipped lone infiltrator (I'm a specialist in this) destroys the spawn and hacks into the vehicle terminal before reinforcements arrive, the constructed base is guaranteed to disappear without a real fight.
The main purpose of an automated tower was to detect the presence of infiltrators or vehicles and give direction to the few defenders at the start of a fight.

Give us more choice of defensive structures, real bunkers that protect its occupants from orbital strikes and flails, new walls, pillboxes, structures with space to accommodate Spears and modules. In short, give the defenders or attackers the tools to create interesting and varied defensive positions for various scenarios

Updates to PTS weekly ish and then live monthly>semi monthly I think is very healthy and positive change! Good work yall

I agree with most. This nerf is really uncalled for. As it stands. player bases are practically useless in the main scheme of the game, which causes basically no one to spawn on them. or when they do spawn on the base they realize their mistake and then redeploy.
The basic design structure has regular players hating spawning on player bases. So they are always undefended.

It truly really is a shame.

Construction was the one factor in the game that actually kept me coming back.

And these updates to meaninglessly push construction into the ground shows how much the devs dont really see the bigger picture.

Currently, most bases can be taken down by one moderately determined infiltrator with a Cortium bomb, a small group of players who decide they want to take a base out with small arms and C4, or 2-3 Lightnings who know how to concentrate fire. An actual full squad or a handful of vehicles is enough to take out even most large bases. Is this... is this deemed to be too much effort for attackers? Like, it's already not particularly challenging to kill a base. Sometimes annoying if you're solo killing a base (something that probably shouldn't really be doable in the first place, but whatever), but very doable. But these changes make me think that the dev team don't think bases should be in the game in a meaningful way at all, unless it's being used by a large outfit who can spare people to sit in turrets and guard the base - though I doubt people are going to be rushing to volunteer even then.

Getting rid of pain fields would make an already fairly easy job even easier for infiltrators, but I guess I can sort of see why, since unavoidable damage isn't fun, even if it's slow and limited in scope. But getting rid of pain fields AND AI turrets makes it basically pointless for anyone who isn't in a large group to bother interacting with this aspect of the game. This is taking the already already only situationally useful activity of base building and make it functionally irrelevant. Being forced to leave your base defenseless unless you have people volunteering to be bored in a turret whenever you leave to gather Cortium, set up routers, or do anything that isn't babysitting your base is going to make it so we see nothing but super low effort skyshield/airpad bases everywhere, because why would anyone ever bother building anything more complicated than that? The time investment alone makes it not worth it, and it was already borderline there; why spend time setting something up that an infiltrator with a Cortium bomb or a random passing vehicle can destroy before you can even get back to defend it? Because without any method of passive defense, that's precisely what's going to happen.

I also have to express some frustration as a primarily solofit or small group player since beta that this appears to be yet another thing that is being put out of my reach as someone who doesn't run with a major outfit outside of joining public squads once in a while. This one stings more than others, though, because unlike something like the Bastion, I used to be able to fully engage in the construction system. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I spent real money unlocking it account-wide. It wasn't ever the primary thing I did, but I did enjoy having a chance to take a break from the farming and build something. This change basically means that I won't be bothering with them again if it goes live. I used to build little helpful bases for my team whenever I happened to be near some Cortium in my battle ANT and had a free moment or happened to have the Cortium Run mission, or maybe contribute to an existing base if I was dumping Cortium into someone else's silo, but if this goes live, I imagine I'll probably just build some random, pointless silo in a contested zone for that mission, then abandon it. I would feel bad about wasting Cortium that other builders could make use of, but I somehow doubt we'll have all that many people competing for it if this goes through.

I guess, more than anything, I just don't get this. Why gut an already struggling part of your game like this? If you want to remove base building, then just remove it and refund people whatever currency they used. I'm not sure why you feel like this is a good idea, but if you're set on it, then I think it'd be a more honest way of going about things.

Dev Note: This softens one of the least fun parts of attacking a construction base, while retaining the defensive nature of this spire. Ok let's break this down, "This softens one of the least fun parts of attacking a construction base", what the part that prevents someone from constantly spamming a base with cortium bombs? I would argue that anyone who sees that as "fun" isn't even trying to destroy a base but be a mere nuisance and trying to get a rise out of someone. I would argue the "fun part" is getting a squad of armor and having a clash with said base. "-while retaining the defensive nature of this spire", it does no such thing. Originally the pain spire would set you on fire, just like a restricted area if you were in it's radius for to long it would kill you, thus preventing you from being a total ***. An EMP field does jack **** to prevent that, especially if your an infiltrator. If you're invisible and can't be seen, how is having no shield going to prevent you from being able to just cortium bomb it? The only way I could see an "EMP" being useful is if it actually functions like an EMP and disables deployables. This change is absolutely useless and is just going to make construction, which already pointless as is, even more unenticing. Now if you excuse me I'm gonna go suck start my commissioner.

you should be ashamed to pull out a rag like that when it comes to construction.

I seriously question the wisdom in the changes to bases.

Pain spire was already incredibly weak at its job which is to deter infantry from just zerging over the base, or lone infiltrators from easily taking out the spawn and just dismantling the base. It is meant to force some kind of force multiplier right? Why is it so anemic and then just removing it? How will EMP solve this at all?

As for the AI module..this seems like another handout to the already most catered to player group on Planetside 2, the ESF 'mains'.

AI was a minor annoyance to tanks and infantry really, since tanks could normally outdps the AV turret(it might mildly deter some or provide some early warning if you're alone in the base) and the Anti Infantry turret could often be line of sighted, though again it encouraged intelligent play to some degree. The main threat it posed was keeping the ALREADY powerful ESF pilots away a little more since their HP pool and the fact that (in the wisdom again) engagement radar passive means everyone runs stealth so they can't soak the constant chip damage from them for long.

So what happened? Did the ESF pilots complain about bases preventing their free farming in planetside 2? Is that why this nerf is happening? It seems mind boggling the number of restrictions building has when it is suppose to be a time/cert investment that lets you change how battles flow, but as more and more nerfs hit it seems like it is at the absolute best a minor speedbump and a waste of time and money.

Wrel, I can understand how a makeshift "spawn room"( sunderer garage with a pain spire,,modules & spawn tube inside) can be seen as BS or annoying to deal with but in all honesty its not hard to deal with if you invested in flail and glail ipc. It easy for even just one person operate both artillery units even without these changes. Using redeploy and vehicles it possible to set up an attack from both to take out the skyshield module rendering a base defenseless to the flail unless the defender take out the flail ai module (which can be built to be well guarded) leaving the base vulnerable to infantry.With the currentt pain spire, Even a light assault flying through the roof of the sunderer garage can destroy a pain spire and spawn tube with c4 from there comfortably once you take out or distract the ai turret with decoy nades.This "disables the base" for easy disposale of modules with small arms. Other than that brute forcing with an infil and sundy is usually enough to take out the pain spire after a few deaths . If these changes go through, please consider how mmuch easier it would be for a lone infantry to destroy the emp spire, spawn tube, and modules once they take out the usual 1-3 defenders. This isn't even getting to the part how vehicles and flails were buffed agianst bases with tthe removal of the ai and pain spire(mmaking modules much more vulnerable).

Without a pain spire to defend a spawn tube from a infaltrator with even just the default sniper, it makes vehicle pulls , sky shield, and silo useless since it easy to start the domino effect once the spawn tube is destroyed.

Also after reading this from the original post "Dev Note: This softens one of the least fun parts of attacking a construction base, while retaining the defensive nature of this spire." The last part of it retaining its defense capability is completely false if this goes through. It don't it main job of deterring or exposing infiltrators especially since the spire itself no long protects intself from being 1 clipped by small arms

Base building is the main thing I do in this game and as frustrating as it already, these changes will kill it for me. All I can say is I better be getting a refund on all the stuff I bought for base building..

So, for the construction, I'll repost what I've said on Twitter:

Personally I like the direction of the changes, but how far it was taken was a bit much. For the Flail, I say if you're gonna nerf it, set it to 350-400 damage per shot instead of 200. With turret AI mod, I'd say keep the old function, but make the turrets weaker when unmanned, but slightly stronger than a normal turret when fired while manned with an AI mod in range. I like the pain spire change though, my only suggestion would be that it also drains ability power as well.