Test Server Update Notes : 7/1

I agree with the AP nerf. Highest damage + highest bullet velocity is just too good. The other changes arent necessary.

Will these changes also come with new appropriate impact animations? For example, instead of a fiery explosion there could be an eruption of feathers or foam shells bouncing off targets.

I like the idea of nerfing the HA rockets a bit against infantry, but is it possible to do it so it doesn't reduce it's damage to vehicles? It's already excessively difficult to take out tanks with one, I don't like the idea of them being even more immortal farming machines.

Instead of nerfing splash damage.,


nerf max splash radius.

From 5 to 3.

Except this patch would buff HE and nerf AP? If the HE rounds take only 2 hits more than AP to kill armor, and HEAT only 1 more hit why even equip AP? You are giving up all your splash to gain a negligible buff against vehicles.

Why is no adjustment to PPA on this list anywhere? You've got a vehicle that can get to places it's impossible for the others, breaking the defense points defined in the map, and then you gave it no drop exploding splash weapons with huge magazines, fast firing rate, and splash damage? You checked out it's stats vs the other options? Nothing else comes close. And that's just looking at the MBTs...

My suggest Bulldog changes

• Inner blast radius reduced from 2 meters to 1.5 meter (Should be 600 damage still here)
• Outer blast radius reduced from 6 meters to 4.5 meters (Should be 350 to 400 damage here)
• Current Outer blast radius change to middle blast Radius
• New Outer Blast Radius added range 8 meters (should be 150 to 250 damage here)

If people are whining so much about Rocket primaries a good test fix should be this, if further changes are necessary then more can be done at a later time. Double hitting will only over doing it. Not to mention damage reduction would devalue flak armor which was buffed twice to deal with splash weapons.

• Blast radius reduced from 0.5 meters to 0.35 meters
• Affected launchers
  • S1
  • Nemesis
  • Hades
  • Hawk
  • Shrike
  • Crow
  • Grounder
  • Skep Launcher
  • ML-7
  • Annihilator
  • Decimator
    • Blast radius reduced from 0.5 meters to 0.4 meters

As for the changes to tank weapons their all bad. However, HE should be boosted for Anti Infantry. Making tanks to only fight tanks instead of specializing for roles or Anti Tank, Dual Purpose, or Anti Infantry would be a poor design choice.

tank weapons have always felt a little weak to me...

Infantry getting squished by tanks? They're either fighting outdoors in open spaces in which case nothing can/should be done or they need to call in some armor of their own.

If they nerfed GL, its about time they do the same with rocket launchers, they are meant for thanks.

Yeah, its God damned realistic that guy can survive RPG hit....
These changes have no sence, tank cannons were good, now HE will be OP because only this will be able to kill infantry by 1 shot and it has increased direct damage..
Is there a chance that these changes won't be applied?

As for the bulldog, yes, it needed a nerf. But it needed an AV nerf, not an AI nerf. The bulldog was really the only choice for AI after the fury nerfs, especially on the sunderer. People started replacing their fury buses with bulldog buses, and realized they were very powerful against vehicles. In my opinion, the bulldog was fine versus infantry, and should never have been changed against infantry. the AV part needed to be changed to make it less effective versus the fury, however.

As for the rocket launchers, I like only half of this. First off, the splash damage did not need a nerf. If you shoot an RPG at a group of enemies, you deserve to get at least one kill from just splash damage. The part that I did like was the "buff" for flak armor. If you can survive one direct hit from a rocket launcher, ya, it seems stupid. But the way I look at it is this - It makes flak armor more worth it, Flak armor is very expensive so it won't affect rocket primary most of the time, and It will reduce the amount of people who actually go for the "no skill kill" of shooting a rocket at someone.

AP rounds
Why did they need to be nerfed? First off, lets focus on the MBT AP rounds. If you got behind a heavy tank with a vanguard/magrider and got 3 hits into it, that isht should be dead, no questions asked. Now you are basically making it require one more shot to kill tanks, which might mean that it will take 4 shots from the rear. Honestly I don't see why you nerfed this thing. You were sacrificing your blast radius to get more direct damage. It was perfectly fine, because you would have a much harder time hitting infantry. Then to the lightning AP. This was the only lightning weapon that stood a chance against an MBT, and now you are nerfing it even more. Please stop with the nerfs, and start buffing stuff instead. (This goes for the PPA as well, instead of nerfing it, why dont you just give the marauder more grenades, and the canister more shells?)

HEAT rounds
Basically you nerfed it. I don't see why you did, but you did. HEAT rounds allowed you to hurt both tanks and infantry, which was preferred by many people. It was balanced, it was a good option, and it allowed you to do AVERAGE damage to infantry and armor. These nerfs on ALL of the weapons are unneeded.

HE rounds
You have just encouraged so many more people to get the HE. Now it only takes 2 more rounds to kill a tank, It has the same reload speed as the other 2, and It can kill infantry faster with the reload speed being buffed. If you bring this into the live servers, all hell will break loose. There will be many more HE farmers, HE will be the best option versus tanks due to the fact that it also has splash damage, and You will just see HE swarms. It will be like the liberator. It was good at the beginning, then you gave it a huge buff. The buff made people dump certs into it, and made them be much more common. Then people started complaining about how OP it was, so you nerfed it. This made people quit the game, because they spent so much time putting certs into it, and you nerfed it with no refunds. (You seriously need to refund people when you do big nerfs on stuff like the lib and the harasser, i put at least 5k certs into both). This is what I see with HE. It is ok now, you are going to buff it, people will complain, then it will be nerfed just like ZOE and be completely worthless after.

STOP NERFING (Unless you really, REALLY need to)

no, don't do this, this is a horrible idea, heat is suppose to be good against infantry, stop nerfing things that don't need nerfed, if people used their brain, used tactics instead of complaing there would be no issue.

I dont understand this. When GL was nerfed people said finally. OK.
Rockets have 5 ammo instead 2, and travel longer range with a lot less drop. They are worse compared to GL and people complain? Also, only full flak wont get killed, just how many people run around full flak anyway...
Thank god two jobbers with decimators wont kill max from 20m anymore. At least thats how i die half a time.

What ever happened to the velocity changes in MBTs? Can we just have that instead and scrap this whole nerfdate you have planned?

I thought it was unneeded back when it was originally proposed, but it seems to be a much better option IMO than a flat nerf to all tank cannons except HE(which weirdly enough is the most complained about cannon, yet it's receiving buffs)

Seriously Higby, try driving tanks a bit before making "balance" changes on something that you clearly have no clue about how it works.

How about you hold a discussion panel with all the dedicated tankers(like you did with all the flyboys prior to the ESF nose gun normalization changes way back when) so at least we know our input has been heard.

I'm not one to say I'm quitting, but if these changes are as bad as I suspect they are, I am done. 2 years of membership and hundreds of dollars of station cash cards for myself and my outfit, only to see my favorite play style changed dramatically and butchered.

I'd be fine with the rocket launcher changes if they were adding in certifications for HE and AP warheads so people can choose to specialize against either infantry or vehicle targets. Seriously, how is that hard to implement? I've been wishing for it since the day I started playing this game.

I'm sorry SOE, but I must ask the question WHY THE HELL DO YOU KEEP NERFING THE HELL OUT OF EVERYTHING?! Tanks are fine as they are (Vanguard AP maybe a teeny weeny bit OTT though). I would like to speak for the TR here. We have nothing to hit aircraft effectively with. At the moment, the Python AP round (the TR's strongest single tank round...) will send an ESF into the "on fire" stage; but nowadays most pilots run Fire Suppression anyway. We have no real primary tank weapons to attack aircraft, and you're lowering the damage even more?! This makes the lightning even more vulnerable to MBTs. It is weak enough as it is, yet alone with less damage. Please 1. take this idea and throw it away, and 2. don't nerf as much in the future.

Stop ruining your game trying to bring those Non-MMO players.

Planetside 2 is a MMOFPS !
LARGE SCALE FIGHT in OPEN WORLD.
Not a /48 Players server emulation of Battle**** or Call of Derpy

But they nerf only splash damage, you cant splash hit aircraft... but still this nerf is STUPID

I must have missed something (can't find the darn list of ners right now...), but there were some that said "damage" and other that said "indirect damage" = splash.
so there are some nerfs to direct damage coming,
and some that will affect splash.

Or did I misunderstand that, or did SOE not type that correctly?
Can somebody post that list here again and point out the 'damage' vs ' indirect damage' changes?
thx.

You were right, they will nerf direct damage too but only to AP.
Its written in the first post, I cant copy that list (I am writing on my tablet) but its not hard to find