Test Patch Notes - 8/1/2013

Discussion in 'Test Server: Announcements' started by JGood, Aug 1, 2013.

  1. Silkensmooth

    I don't tell my friends not to bother, i tell them, you need to learn to fly, its the best thing about this game.

    Don't know if you have flown lately, but there are no shortage of planes in the air.

    We aren't a bunch of dicks, we are a bunch of people trying to protect something that we love to do.

    We worked hard to be good at what we do. If you fly a lot and practice, you can be good too.

    There are a multitude of games that will hold your hand for you. This game was not one of them when i started playing it, and that is why i loved it. It is my opinion that the majority of players who picked this game up weren't looking for a hand holder. We liked sandbox and skill based. It's no longer sandbox and the skill is fading fast.

    You talk about new players like there are more arriving daily, yet the population keeps dwindling. Soon there will be no east coast and west coast servers, only NA server. All they are doing by radically changing game design is alienating the players who actually play the game and causing further decline of the playerbase.

    Now normally this would seem like an illogical thing to do, although they did it to SWG, but in this case i believe that most of these changes are being made for the PS4. There is a lot more money to be made selling PS2 for the PS4 than there is in trying to keep the PC playerbase happy. That is what is really going on here. Console gamers want fast food. They want to log in for whatever period of time and feel as though they are doing well. They don't want to invest time in becoming good at a game, they want to beat it as fast as possible and move on to the next game.
    • Up x 1
  2. Tar

    vertical afterburner? oh noes, we created a flight model that is slightly different from 5478934 other games!?! sounds risky, abort!
    We'll totally attract new players with this wise change and not lose any old ones!
  3. DeadliestMoon

    That's subjective.

    Yep, there's no shortage of lolpod spammers.

    That's fine, but you have to realize that this can be seen as elitism. Especially when the only advice you give to new pilots is "get better."

    Not a lot of people have enough patience to practice enough to become an "ace" pilot.

    What exactly constitutes as "hand holding"? You're right that is your opinion because it was my understanding that because of the huge skill curve, that made trying to learn how to fly when no one or nothing else is helping you. Combine that with the fact that going up against other pilots is suicide when they can just pull that move out on a dime. If you want 'sandbox' go play GTA, this is 'open world' and the skill is very much still there, after all, you "ace" pilots are still here.

    I have no idea where you are getting this, do you have the numbers to back this up? Also if you do have numbers, can you get a SOE employee to confirm them?

    I don't think that's right. You don't know that, the PS4 isn't even out yet; also if this was true (which it isn't), would you blame them for wanting to favor the PS4 when a substantial amount of PC players are ludicrously negative at everything they do? Doesn't everyone want to do well? This last sentence here is just funny. Not everyone has the time to become an MLG pro, so you can't expect them to spend hours just trying to learn how to fly better. BTW, most gamers just blaze through games anyway, doesn't mean they have less fun than everyone else.

    *note: I took out your fast food comment because it was irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I understand the analogy but it wasn't needed.
  4. SternLX

    How about you post yours up? Afraid we'll see how much of a Lolpodder you are?
  5. Hades Serpent

    SOE can change the air game however they want. I'll adapt. (Most likely by certing AB tanks and finally using them; doing so in a scythe is a little silly.)
  6. Krokozor


    OH WOW

    SOE STOP MAKING THINGS WORSE.
  7. Silkensmooth

    When they can just pull that move out on a dime lol. Is that something you can't do? You mean you want to nerf skill?

    We arent talking about something that everyone cant learn to do. It's not hard, there are videos and im sure that if you asked there would be a lot of pilots willing to go to VR with you and teach you how to fly. If you are on Connery im Silken7777NC Vanesse74VS and SilkenstrTR, i would be more than happy to spend some time in VR with anyone who needs help learning to do the reverse maneuver.

    As far as numbers for game pop goes, i dont have the actual numbers no, but i have been through two mergers already, and i can see the pop dwindling on Connery on a weekly basis. When you have server mergers that is not a sign of growth.

    How are we supposed to be positive when they introduce things like lock-ons lattice and now this? And if you research my threads and posts, you will find that i am mainly constructive and positive. I even posted a thread thanking SOE for fixing people jumping out of planes. I do think they listen, or i wouldn't bother posting here. I enjoy arguing with noobs, but i have hope that the people who know whats up will listen to the majority of pilots who dont want this change, vs the majority of non-pilots who just want to see us get screwed because they are too lazy to learn to fly.
    • Up x 1
  8. Schwak

    Should have made stealth a .5 reduce lock with each cert into instead of changing the stealth, I'd definitely cert out stealth if it was 2 seconds longer lock on to be honest.
  9. LlamagoMmmm

    Infact, more infantry might get lolpodded, as the pilots wont be there to stop them, just gotta hope for the aa or ground lockons if your an infantry player
  10. Silkensmooth

    And another thing i would like to reiterate that many other pilots have stated; this change isnt going to help new pilots.

    Why?

    Because I don't need the reverse maneuver against a new pilot. I'm gonna be flying high, and come in behind him, and he is probly going to fly in a straight line and get burned down in less than 2 clips. Even if i'm jousting with a new player, im just gonna roll on my side and use v-thrust to dance circles around him, melting him with my hundreds of hours worth of aiming experience, while he struggles to land a single shot, and guess what, i havent so much as blipped my AB.

    No, all this is going to do, is to make dogfights against good pilots all about who saw who first, and thats not gonna be a lot of fun for us, but we are still going to absolutely destroy noobs.

    So now, im going to be constructive, and offer up some changes that would help noobs and not hurt vets. First thing they could do is increase bullet velocities across all 3 factrions on the rotary to 700. The base guns have a nice high velocity but their dps is too low for them to be competative.

    What bullet velocity does, for those who don't know, is makes it much easier to lead your target. Currently, and this is something i had a very hard time with when i was new to flying, you have to aim at a spot that is empty air. If you don't know that med settings give the best tracers, as a new pilot you may not really know where the bullets are going. You have your reticule right on the enemy plane, but you are missing by a mile.

    Lately i have been playing my Scythe, and finding it so much easier to aim due to the increased velocity, 700 vs 650,

    Another thing that could be done would be to make the tracers much brighter, not night time blinding ultra settings bright, but clearly more visible.

    In the end winning a dogfight isn't so much about the reverse maneuver, it comes down to who can aim better.

    Another way to make it easier for new players would be to remove the extremely volatile nature of the materials that compose the ESF. Put simply, a plane that can pull 20 G turns shouldnt explode because a wing tip grazed a cliff, or you bump into something at 3 kph.

    Lets get rid of the stupid resource system too, that would help new players tremendously. If you have to wait 15 mins for a new plane every time you die after 30 secs, its hard to get enough practice to learn to fly. The VR is a decent, only decent because of silly walls that make you explode, place to learn to control the plane, but you can't learn to dogfight there.

    Lastly there is one change to the reverse maneuver that would be really cool and actually make it a bit more difficult. A pilot pulling massive Gs in a plane will have all the blood in their head pushed down toward their feet, and they pass out. Lets have a G meter installed, and when you exceed a certain limit, you start to pass out. The screen would begin to turn black around the edges, and then more of the screen would fade from view the longer you continue the maneuver. If you pull too many Gs for too long, the screen goes completely black, as you have passed out, and the plane free-falls for a few secs before you come to.
  11. DeadliestMoon

    For the record I can do the reverse maneuver, both on test server and on LIVE, it's not hard. I have a TR on Connery the pop is fine.
  12. Silkensmooth

    So there you go, its not hard. And you are right, it isnt hard at all to do, especially if you have someone helping you. Most people dont know about analog throttle for example. I had probly 10 days in my reaver before i learned of this super handy tool. Hit analog throttle roll on your side pitch down for a second or two and you are ready to do the reverse.

    If you take it away, its just going to be spinning circles, everyone running racer and ab and just trying to fly to friendly flack every time they get another pilot on their six. Doesn't sound fun to me.

    As far as population decline, 2 server mergers, enough said. Connery currently? Yes the population is fine, but it is visibly declining, and soon we are going to be playing on a single NA server. Really another topic, but the instability introduced by the F2P model will quickly kill any competitive game, because it is extremely hard not to make things pay to win. Your source of revenue is dependant mainly upon selling weapons, and the majority of players arent going to spend money on a weapon that is not better than the one they already use. So you have to constantly raise the bar, or end up nerfing things which leads to instability. There is a very good chance that the thing that you like to do will get changed radically or nerfed. When you get nerfed it is never a good feeling, even if it is justified.

    A better business model would be to make it free to play to BR20 so people could fall in love with the game without risking any cash, and then if you want to advance beyond that you have to buy a sub. This way your revenue stream is based only on retaining customers, rather than trying to find every possible way to milk cash from them; which some, myself included, feel is reprehensible.

    You cant change major game mechanics. You just cant or the game will fail.

    What is the point of this change? If I have never played planetside2 this change isnt going to make me want to play it, so im not gaining anything there. If they don't change it, people who don't like the reverse maneuver aren't likely to quit the game, but if they do change it, they risk losing a lot of dedicated pilots. To sum up, there is only loss from a change like this. It would be illogical in a business that is about MAKING money to deliberately do something that will LOSE money. Unless as i have said before these changes are for the ps4, in which case you have a whole new set of variables to consider. For the PC platform i see no advantage to this change from a business standpoint.
    • Up x 1
  13. Silkensmooth

    Oh and of course the new weapons coming out for ESFs so wanting to get every noob in the game to fly so they will buy weapons. Again the free to play cash shop proving that it is not good for games that are good. Only good for games no one would really want to pay for.
  14. LlamagoMmmm

    Haha dude, Stigma is not a 'lolpodder'. I have fought him many a time, and he is defiantly one of the really good pilots on miller. Rolling with rocket pods does not there and then make you a 'lolpodder'. Ive flown with rocket pods equiped, taken out the odd infantry, tank maybe. But ive used them more in a2a fights - this does not make you a lolpodder. Most Rocket-podders are people who tend to only ground pound. Barely even looking to fighting another esf (most), or pulling off complex manouvers. To them, the idea of pulling an esf is to simply ground pound. Im not saying anything is bad about that, but its a playstyle, but they dont experience the full air mechanics in this game, which is a shame, as most people just expect to be good. I have spent many hours practicing and perfecting manouvers, getting completely owned by other good pilots. But everytime i fell off my horse, i got back on it, and continued to try to ride. People need to have more of an open mind when it comes to these updates, and understand to an extent that this sort of ruins the air game and its just such a shame... :(
  15. LlamagoMmmm






    Not all of us 'Ace' Pilots are so 'elitist' as you believe...
    If someone asks me how to get better, or what they were doing wrong, i'l tell them, and i want to help them out, especially if they are making the effort to improve themselves.
    And, to be honest, if you havnt got the patience to learn how to become an 'ace' pilot, then dont expect to not be 1 clipped by the 'ace' pilots of the server. If you dont want to be beaten by good pilots, you have to learn how to defend yourself against them. Just like in real life, some animals have evolved over millions of years to build up defences, or learn how to defend against certain animals. Im sure there are many examples.
    Where not all that bad and, for the sake of the air game, this change is not looking good for it.
    LlamagoMmmm
  16. Vanuisavastevil

    Actually the new ESF nerf for reverse thrustying is needed ( yes spelled thrusting wrong cause it is fing stupid to reverse thrust against a pilot with more skill than you. ) It'll make it easier to secure a skill by a pilot who didn't make a LOL stop to repair his aircraft, your greatest gift is mobility and view. Not my fault if you decided to park yourself out of the air where you are most vunerable, I shouldn't have to wrestle a fight from you, your dead already. I've killed over 253 people + 432 more bailed out, I'm qualified to speak about the stupidity pilots do all of the time. The problem is it isn't were elitist, the ones whom speak are just crap players, and they know if they tone reverse thrusting down to a reasonable state their ignorance will get them killed. Most time a good pilot won't even hint at a tiny bit of despair of a silly pilot reverse thrusting, why ? Your likely already behind them = the better pilot cause they didn't check their 6 or have air superiority before even going there. Flying is easy for those who wish to put time into it, this very much is a casual game, so even if you come on and just lazily get to BR 40-50 your going to be better than all other lower level BR pilots, unless they make another character, but you still have a better certed aircraft if that is your thing. Where it comes down to skill is accuracy, if you have really bad accuracy the only thing that can be done is practice, or get A2A pods. Simple.
  17. Donaldson Jones

    Not seeing any of the ESF weapons atm.
  18. CursoryRaptor

    Well, for one thing, you're all but openly proposing gagging anyone who doesn't primarily fly. For another, let's try a thought experiment:

    Let's say you get your way and anyone who doesn't spend the majority of their time doing an activity has no say whatsoever in the direction of its development. Let's also say the developers see the "error of their ways" and decide to listen to everything the "experts" of a given discipline of fighting in PS2 have to say. Sure, you'll get your ideal ESF, but you'll have no "right" to complain about the MAXes' Bursters going back to what they were pre-nerf, because you're a pilot, not an AA gunner.
  19. Redemer

  20. Redemer

    New ESF Weapons and Reverse Thrust Tweaks
    The Mass Driver, Coyote Missiles and Locust Cannons are available for all factions, so please put them through their paces and let us know what you think.We haven’t had much of a chance to play with these weapons and see how they perform and feel, so we could really use the feedback. These weapons are not set in stone, are a work in progress, still can see major changes, etc, etc, so please refrain from rejoicing, panicking, or rioting prematurely.