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[mr_nothin]

Esamir (another continent), a hefty amount of new certs, and some new weapons are currently scheduled for deployment in tonight's patch (Wed/Thursday Morning).
Cant wait! This patch is going to be one of the biggest ones yet!


Also, Higby addresses a few concerns and talks about upcoming changes:

Hey guys -

I wanted to address some common issues we're seeing on beta right now and some plans for solving them which you'll see in the next couple weeks.

Spawn Camping

Towers and certain large facilities have had big increase in the prevalence of spawn camping since the last patch. When a base is about to flip you'll see players spawn engineers and camp the tubes with turrets. To combat this we will be implementing pain fields (areas where enemy players take damage over time as long as they're standing in them) in certain spawn rooms.

Rockets and tank shells occasionally do no damage

Currently there is a bug where if you fire immediately after reloading the projectile will not do damage. This is most obvious when firing rocket launcher and tank shells. You can avoid this by waiting a moment after reloading before firing, but it will be resolved with this week's beta update. [Currently scheduled for Wednesday night/Thursday morning]

Population balancing

We've noticed the issues associated with population imbalances in the game. There are two primary things we're doing to address these issues in the near future:

1 - This week we'll be increasing the XP and Resource bonuses for under populated empires, as well as the threshold for when those bonuses are received.
2 - Next week we will be implementing zone and world level empire population caps. These will prevent a single over-populated empire from locking the other empires out of the zone / server.

We will continue to monitor the issues associated with population balance and reassess as more continents become available for play.

Default lack of anti-air

With the recent character wipe we've noticed players having a lot of trouble dealing with aircraft (especially liberators) from the ground. This week we'll be making Burster MAX weapons more readily available to new characters (this may just be a 1 Auraxium unlock for now, or it may just show up automatically on your character, we're still figuring it out), and eventually we'll be adding more anti-air weaponry for Engineers.

Platoon and squad issues

Platoons and squad leaders have expressed several communication and coordination related issues, largely having to do with being able to see all platoon members on the map, being able to see platoon and squad vehicles on the map. We're working on fixing these issues as quickly as possible and you should start seeing improvements this week, with a lot more coming next week.

My guns suck now! Boo! Hiss!

We've seen a lot of threads about various weapon balance changes and the feeling that "_____ faction's weapons have been nerfed, I can't hit anything now". Looking through our data we can see that overall weapon accuracy has gone down a few percentage points in the last week, but not significantly and not for any one faction more than any other. Here is some aggregate accuracy data for each of the main infantry weapons gathered since the most recent patch vs pre-patch:

Pre-patch accuracy:

NC Assault Rifle: 34.0542%
TR Assault Rifle: 33.0161%
VS Assault Rifle: 33.2806%

NC Carbine: 33.3055%
TR Carbine: 32.4743%
VS Carbine: 33.6675%

NC LMG: 28.3856%
TR LMG: 27.7163%
VS LMG: 27.8617%

Post-patch accuracy:

NC Assault Rifle: 29.9629%
TR Assault Rifle: 29.2134%
VS Assault Rifle: 29.4579%

NC Carbine: 30.6946%
TR Carbine: 29.4575%
VS Carbine: 29.8943%

NC LMG: 24.0507%
TR LMG: 24.6082%
VS LMG: 24.8786%

This shows a drop across the board of about 3-4.5% accuracy on each weapon with the addition of the new recoil mechanics. This is pretty much as expected and isn't impacting any particular empire more than the others. The average difference in accuracy across each empire are as follows:

NC: -3.7614%
TR: -3.8115%
VS: -3.9724%

NOTE: This loss in accuracy hurts the NC the most, since they're generally speaking the most punch per bullet, but the effects should be mostly negligible.

As always, thanks for continuing to beta test, your feedback and bug reports are definitely helping us to make this game great. Until next time!

 

[Arksy]

Are they going to unlock more weapons any time soon? I'd love to be able to use shotguns on my infiltrator.

 

[mr_nothin]

Are they going to unlock more weapons any time soon? I'd love to be able to use shotguns on my infiltrator.

Tonight! (Well patch Wednesday night & playable Thursday morning) Not sure what weapons or exactly how many but we should be receiving a few new guns and a lot of new certs tonight. Gameplay is going to change drastically.

 

[Arksy]

Tonight! (Well patch Wednesday night & playable Thursday morning) Not sure what weapons or exactly how many but we should be receiving a few new guns and a lot of new certs tonight. Gameplay is going to change drastically.

Nooooo. Downtime? How long?

 

[MrBig]

Esamir (another continent), a hefty amount of new certs, and some new weapons are currently scheduled for deployment in tonight's patch (Wed/Thursday Morning).

that is if it all doesn't break before/after the patch

Them not really talking about it at all much me think they're afraid they won't get it in on this patch

 

[mr_nothin]

that is if it all doesn't break before/after the patch

Them not really talking about it at all much me think they're afraid they won't get it in on this patch

Well...yea :/
But them not talking about it makes me think they're just focusing all their time on trying to get this patch out. The actual devs havent been that active on the forums these past few days.

 

[Arksy]

I'm actually starting to appreciate all the factions now. They've each got some brutal combinations. NC sniper at mid range is incredible. The Carbine for TR is amazing at 40 rounds per mag and the Vanu LMG is so good with it's tiny scatter. Same with the vehicles the magrider is insane and I'm loving the TR tank with two shots.

Why isn't everyone jumping in on this game? It's awesome.

 

[mr_nothin]

I'm actually starting to appreciate all the factions now. They've each got some brutal combinations. NC sniper at mid range is incredible. The Carbine for TR is amazing at 40 rounds per mag and the Vanu LMG is so good with it's tiny scatter. Same with the vehicles the magrider is insane and I'm loving the TR tank with two shots.

Why isn't everyone jumping in on this game? It's awesome.

Well, everyone cant jump in on the game right now because it's a closed beta still
But yea, the game definitely needs more attention on here because it really is just that amazing of a game. Funny thing is, is that a lot of the actual game still isnt even implemented. There are a lot of big features that are still being developed right now and the game is going to change a lot over the next few weeks/month. Global mission system, commander roles, full fledged hacking (bases, vehicles, doors, etc), secondary objectives, etc. still arent in yet. We're still playing a very basic version of the game. The certs alone will really change how battles will play out.

In other news, spent an hour holding The Crown today and got about 17-23 cert points during that time lol.

 

[Arksy]

Well, everyone cant jump in on the game right now because it's a closed beta still
But yea, the game definitely needs more attention on here because it really is just that amazing of a game. Funny thing is, is that a lot of the actual game still isnt even implemented. There are a lot of big features that are still being developed right now and the game is going to change a lot over the next few weeks/month. Global mission system, commander roles, full fledged hacking (bases, vehicles, doors, etc), secondary objectives, etc. still arent in yet. We're still playing a very basic version of the game. The certs alone will really change how battles will play out.

In other news, spent an hour holding The Crown today and got about 17-23 cert points during that time lol.

Good point. I have to say that even with these basic mechanics in place it's still close to the best FPS I've ever played, and that's quite a big claim coming from me. No other game of this kind (of which there aren't too many) gets the scale, the gunplay, the class mechanics and the look right.

 

[mr_nothin]

Good point. I have to say that even with these basic mechanics in place it's still close to the best FPS I've ever played, and that's quite a big claim coming from me. No other game of this kind (of which there aren't too many) gets the scale, the gunplay, the class mechanics and the look right.

I'm still amazed at the fact that they are actually getting everything to work the way it does and look the way it does on the scale that it is with this many players all at once. The lighting and amount of light sources, the day/night cycles, the draw distance, scale, gunplay, just everything. And to think, we dont even have all of the final graphical touches in the game yet and a lot of stuff is still place holder. To get so much right on this scale is just amazing to me. There's a lot of complex things going on in this game.

It's also creeping up on my fav fps ever list. This series has now become my Battlefield replacement at the moment. Just sucks that I didnt get to experience the 1st Planetside because of the subscription barrier and my young age at the time.

 

[Lonestar]

I'm still amazed at the fact that they are actually getting everything to work the way it does and look the way it does on the scale that it is with this many players all at once. The lighting and amount of light sources, the day/night cycles, the draw distance, scale, gunplay, just everything. And to think, we dont even have all of the final graphical touches in the game yet and a lot of stuff is still place holder. To get so much right on this scale is just amazing to me. There's a lot of complex things going on in this game.

It's also creeping up on my fav fps ever list. This series has now become my Battlefield replacement at the moment. Just sucks that I didnt get to experience the 1st Planetside because of the subscription barrier and my young age at the time.

About PS1. It was a full game, that had all it's bells and whistles when it was released into the public (which means more so than this beta), when you get down to the base gameplay, PS2 plays so much better. PS1 was very plain looking at the time (did they ever revamp the engine or textures over the years?), and was basic in its FPS control. To me, that game lived and breathed when it came to massive battles over fortresses, when you could feel the ebb and flow of battle. Which PS2 has in spades so far, even in it's current "bare bones" form.

Still miss the invisible AMS vehicle. And now that they've made the Sunderer the go-to vehicle for Spawn points, it's that much closer to the same thing (minus the invisibility)

 

[Booter]

I wish my PC was stronk enough to play this I might buy the founder's package $40 thing anyway, my hype levels are so high

 

[Arksy]

Did the right patch not go up?

 

[Lonestar]

Think the patch might go up after today's gametime (meaning late tonight/early AM tomorrow)

 

[Wes]

Is there a TR outfit created? How does one join?

 

[mr_nothin]

What is with ppl complaining about the gunplay on the forums now? People actually thought the gunplay was better before these past 2 patches :|

 

[Pennybags]

What is with ppl complaining about the gunplay on the forums now? People actually thought the gunplay was better before these past 2 patches :|

.

 

[MrBig]

Is there a TR outfit created? How does one join?

No one has stepped up to helm the Themisto TR outfit yet. Don't know why, as the TR certainly holds the GAF majority atm

Another mention for people to fill this out, we're missing quite a few people I know play

 

[cametall]

Seems like every time I log into Themisto VS and NC (me) are taking back a nearly all red map...

Do TR get on and dominate during non-prime time hours and then disappear during prime time?

 

[human onion]

Signed up, hope to get into some more coordinated gameplay. Can't wait for tonight's patch!

 

[mr_nothin]

For new comers, here's a thread on stuff most of you probably didnt know
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...idnt-know-that-thread-summary-25-09-12.23988/

- The Map has a lot of tick boxes to help pop overlay information onto it.
- Holding down the Q key over a friendly unit will bring up a radial menu where you can select a number of options to interact or request something from them.
- The function keys will let you swap seats in vehicles, except for getting into the driver seat if you don't own it.
- Class special abilities (Engineers don't have one as such) are activated by the F key by default.
- There is a "free look" feature in air vehicles, default is middle mouse.
- Bio Lab bases often have teleporters and bouncer pads at their exterior sub buildings.
- The B key by default can switch infantry weapons in and out of single shot mode.
- The Left Shift key by default activates the "hold breath" feature when zooming with a dedicated sniper rifle, steadying its wobble.
- Drop pods are steerable, and can be used as weapons to ram with.
- Engineers can change their turret into their ammo pack with the B key by default, so you can carry other things in place of the ammo pack in the inventory slot like mines.


- MAXes can crouch.
- Vehicles can be driven inside base buildings, unlike in PS1.
- C4 will stick to things, vehicles and objects in the world. Possible to stick one onto your own Flash and bail from it at speed sending it towards the enemy and click/click/boom.
- Tapping the Q key near or over an enemy will "spot" them, highlighting them in yours and other friendlies views and on the mini map.
- T key by default is third person view, but only for vehicles.
- Galaxies and AMS Sunderers have blue glowing panels on them where you can resupply.
- The ALT key by default brings up the mouse pointer.
- ALT+F by default brings up a frames per second indicator.
- The F11 key by default will put you into any available squad, auto join feature.
- Implants can be acquired via the yellow icon store at the bottom of the map, they then need to be equiped in the player section. They tend to last 24 hours for the most part.
- The Support text/icon in the bottom left of the map screen is where you can go to report a bug.
- Grenades, healing kits and consumables in general can be bought and stockpiled (upto a limit) if you have the resources to use up.


- The H key by default will toggle up/down the size of mini-map.
- The mini-map can be set to static or rotating mode in the options.
- The V key by default brings up a menu of 1-10 key presses for voice macros that your empire mates will hear if near you (and they have the options on in the sound option menu).
- Engineers can also use third person (T key) when they are using their deployed turrets.
- The L key by default enables or disables headlights on ground vehicles, they start on by default.
- Many things that you cert for in vehicles must be equiped when you go to acquire the vehicle from the terminal, check out the inventory like boxes on the vehicles for things like scopes you've certed for.
- Landing on an air pad with the big AMMO symbol will refresh your air vehicles ammo. There are similar AMMO towers in most, but not all, bases for ground vehicles.
- C4 is throw with the right mouse button but detonated with the left.
- It's possible to revive yourself with a revive grenade if its thrown just before you die.
- Chat and some slash commands are....

/squad invite <playername>
/squad kick <playername>
/squad leave
/s or /sq this sends a message to your squad
/l or /local sends a message to the local area (same as SAY or regular/default chatting)
/yell sends a yell that can be seen by everyone on the server
/re chats in the current hex cluster but only to your empire mates.
/pl chats in Platoon.
/os chats in Outfit.
/suicide

- The Pagedown key by default brings up a vehicle permissions menu, allowing you to lock it up, or just for squad/platoon mates.
- For 2 certs (at the time of writing) you can purchase Command Rank 1. Which allows you to buy Squad/Spawn Beacons, which can be placed in world after buying them at which squad mates can hot drop onto. They can be destroyed by hostile fire.
- ALT+T turns on a range-finder feature.
- Grenade bandoliers, or other armour upgrades for infantry must be equipped after cert purchase, and they won't stack

 

[human onion]

For new comers, here's a thread on stuff most of you probably didnt know

The chat functions are new to me, thanks!

 

[Jhriad]

No one has stepped up to helm the Themisto TR outfit yet. Don't know why, as the TR certainly holds the GAF majority atm

I've got a TR outfit on Amalthea. The decision of moving to Themisto was made after I had already told the members where we were going so I stuck with it.

 

[Liberty4all]

Another awesome night. Lots of great squad on squad action.

 

[mr_nothin]

Welp, patch will be Thursday night again this week. Seems they are changing the default weapon on the liberator.

In other news....
So today I went around shutting down Sunderers and hilarity ensued.

http://youtu.be/b-pcgHrgzVE?hd=1&t=37s

Sorry to the fellow TR that died in the process of making this vid!

I earned 81 cert points today D:
I think my addiction to this game is unhealthy. I've played 45+ hours since the character wipe (last patch).

 

[ShdwDrake]

I hopped in the game a bit before work for like only 30 mins... it looks great but wtf do I do? Maybe I should read the OP lol

 

[Moaradin]

Welp, patch will be Thursday night again this week.

Haven't they already said it's gonna be Wednesday night/Thursday morning though?

 

[mr_nothin]

Haven't they already said it's gonna be Wednesday night/Thursday morning though?

It was supposed to be Wednesday night/Thursday morning but Higby just put out a tweet saying they're trying to make a few more tweaks to the new default liberator weapon so It's going out Thursday night/Friday morning now.

 

[Keasar]

It was supposed to be Wednesday night/Thursday morning but Higby just put out a tweet saying they're trying to make a few more tweaks to the new default liberator weapon so It's going out Thursday night/Friday morning now.

Any patch notes or info on what the new default weapon will be (Liberator fanatic)?

 

[mr_nothin]

Any patch notes or info on what the new default weapon will be (Liberator fanatic)?

Nope!
The only thing we have is this bit from Higby:

Patch is going to be tomorrow night guys. Still trying to cram in one last tweak to the new default weapon on the lib - AP30 Shredder!

 

[Pennybags]

Any patch notes or info on what the new default weapon will be (Liberator fanatic)?

The new default will be a weapon that is already available. The Shredder is a quad-barreled machinegun that tears up aircraft and ground vehicles.

If they are tweaking it to be the default weapon, I wouldn't be surprised if they make it a bit more effective against infantry while reducing its effects against other types of units.

 

[MrBig]

This hardly feels like Planetside with a single Continent. I really hope Esamir makes it in this week

e: bamelin I tried to send you a FR on Themisto last night and it said the nick didn't exist

Also, does anyone know if FRs actually get queued for offline players?

I earned 81 cert points today D:
I think my addiction to this game is unhealthy. I've played 45+ hours since the character wipe (last patch).

Really wish I could play more, but I don't want to burn myself out on Indar. Only have a few hours logged since the wipe

 

[Pennybags]

This hardly feels like Planetside with a single Continent. I really hope Esamir makes it in this week

We won't have intercontinental travel for a while, per the last dev update.

 

[MrBig]

We won't have intercontinental travel for a while, per the last dev update.

That meeting refers to Esamir launching this week @12:30

So at least we'll be able to play on it even if we don't have intercontinental mechanics.

 

[Pennybags]

That meeting refers to Esamir launching this week @12:30

So at least we'll be able to play on it even if we don't have intercontinental mechanics.

Yeah, was just saying no matter what, we still have one continent for a while.

 

[Jhriad]

Really wish I could play more, but I don't want to burn myself out on Indar. Only have a few hours logged since the wipe

Sounds like you're already feeling a.bit burned out I'd you're limiting your gameplay that much.

 

[MrBig]

Sounds like you're already feeling a.bit burned out I'd you're limiting your gameplay that much.

Well, I have ~15 hours logged over my various characters. Just have less time to spend on games now

 

[Keasar]

Nope!
The only thing we have is this bit from Higby:

Seems to be a more anti-armor focused weapon as opposed to the "BLOW EVERYTHING UP!"-gun.

 

[Liberty4all]

This hardly feels like Planetside with a single Continent. I really hope Esamir makes it in this week

e: bamelin I tried to send you a FR on Themisto last night and it said the nick didn't exist

Also, does anyone know if FRs actually get queued for offline players?



Really wish I could play more, but I don't want to burn myself out on Indar. Only have a few hours logged since the wipe

Somehow my last character switched severs. No idea how that happened. New character on Themisto is bamelin1

 

[MrPing1000]

Infiltrator really needs all its certs unlocked. It's still a bit shit.

 

[Liberty4all]

Infiltrator really needs all its certs unlocked. It's still a bit shit.

Really?

Most infiltrator's I know are bringers of quick and sudden death on the battlefield. It will only get worse as certs make them more powerful.

NC in particular ... their infiltrator's base sniper rifle is beastly. I've even seen some guys running around shooting it from the hip.

 

[Arksy]

Anti-vehicle and anti-air in this game is exceptionally underpowered. It takes like 5-6 rockets to kill a single tank. Not to mention there is barely any AA at all.

 

[mr_nothin]

Anti-vehicle and anti-air in this game is exceptionally underpowered. It takes like 5-6 rockets to kill a single tank. Not to mention there is barely any AA at all.

AV is pretty good. Remember to hit tanks from the side and in the back (weak point). It only takes about 3 rockets to get rid of a tank when shooting the back. If that fails then get a MAX and double up on AV and shoot it in the back. Should take it out in no time, either that or the driver will run off.

AA is missing yes but they're addressing that.

 

[MrBig]

Anti-vehicle and anti-air in this game is exceptionally underpowered. It takes like 5-6 rockets to kill a single tank. Not to mention there is barely any AA at all.

Yes, that is because a single HA infantry should not be able to easily take out a MBT. If you are by yourself, though, aim for the back, their weakest point. You should of course fail if you just rambo it.

AA used to be available to all MAXes by default, but everyone having access to it made ground AA far too overpowering. They're working on some solution to not push it to either extreme.



No esamir this week :/

 

[Arksy]

Which is all good and well but there's really nothing you can do when a force comes marching with 20+ tanks.

 

[MrBig]

Which is all good and well but there's really nothing you can do when a force comes marching with 20+ tanks.

Then have your allies pull tanks or AV maxes, or retreat. I'm not sure why you would expect to fend off an armor column as infantry.

 

[mr_nothin]

No esamir this week :/

I kind of figured it would be next week after watching the last Command Center where Higby said "In about 2 weeks". I tried to remain optimistic and told myself maybe he meant within 2 weeks so we'll still get it tonight lol.
Anyways, Smedley says we'll have Esamir next week. This patch is still a huge patch though.

Then have your allies pull tanks or AV maxes, or retreat. I'm not sure why you would expect to fend off an armor column as infantry.

Yea, if there's nothing you can do then just relocate and try to wait for reinforcements or move to another area. Sometimes you just cant win them all. I love the fact that me and 1 other guy held off 1 whole squad from pushing too far north. We got pushed back but we slowed them down a LOT. After they pushed us back 3 bases, we had a crap ton of reinforcements come in and help us start to turn the tide. 2 Gals, 5 prowlers, and 2 Sundys. Felt awesome.

 

[Arksy]

Then have your allies pull tanks or AV maxes, or retreat. I'm not sure why you would expect to fend off an armor column as infantry.

I really need to stop lone-wolfing.

Edit: Apart from the death zones in spawn points, and pop caps, what else is coming tonight?

 

[MrBig]

I really need to stop lone-wolfing.

Edit: Apart from the death zones in spawn points, and pop caps, what else is coming tonight?

Indeed, there's really not much, on a macro scale, that a single soldier can do in a continental/global/interplanetary war. Teamwork is absolutely essential in this game.


They haven't detailed too many specifics. We'll get patch notes later tonight, and probably won't play until tomorrow

 

[mr_nothin]

Another character wipe next week!!!! YAY!
Just as I've reached BattleRank 14 :/ Ole well, I'll be right back up there. Passive cert gain going in tonight as well.

Hey all -

As some of you have fondly noted, the cost for certain certs in the game are a bit out of whack right now. We're in the middle of a big certification rebalance which will be up on beta with next week's push. This will affect cert prices as well as cert point accumulation rates.

With tonight's patch we will be re-enabling passive cert point gain and for the next week we will be cranking the rate of the gain up quite a bit. We're doing this so that we can test a lot of the higher level certs which are impossible to acquire right now with the current costs and cert point acquisition rates. I want to be clear that this weeks passive cert point rate is ABSOLUTELY NOT indicative of our final rate, it's juiced way up.

Now for the painful part - with next week's patch and certification point rebalance we will be doing a character wipe. Next week's patch is going to be really exciting, we'll be adding Esamir to the game as well as ungating almost all of the remaining certs and solidifying cert point costs across the board. So this week, enjoy the fast cert point gain, try out lots of certs and let us know what works well, what works too well, and what doesn't work at all.

Looking forward to seeing your feedback and finally getting that Nanoweave armor...