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Planetside 2

Battle rank 22 now. Game is fun but it has a lot of issues still. No money from me until they fix the bug that frequently (every hour or so) prevents LA jump jets from working. And they need to rebalance rocket pods.

The rocket pods are the worst thing about the game by far. They go in the secondary slot of fighters, which is normally empty. Every other weapon in the game has a default gun in the original spot, so it at least pretends to be a sidegrade. In this case, it's just straight up pay2win, since it replaces an empty slot.
It's an I-win button versus every type vehicle, infantry, and all air besides other fighters. It's priced on the highest tier of weapons, so people are just starting to unlock them now (if they didn't purchase them straight away) and the game is just spammed with them.
 
Ya I hate that jump jet bug. It seems to be related to dying as another class then switching to LA. To fix it you only need to logout from the game, you don't need to quit all the way out.

As for the rocket pods, they are nerfing the rocket pod splash damage a bit in a patch next week and making some other Anti-Air changes. Also the secondary slot isn't "empty", you lose the external afterburner fuel tanks. I agree though, the rocketpods are a pretty solid upgrade. We'll see how the patch plays out.
 
I am getting really sick of people abusing the proximity VOIP by playing shitty music, screaming into the mic, etc... It gets even more frustrating when I try to go in and mute them just to have the list keep jumping around so I end up muting everyone but the jerk off.
 
Interesting changes for next week, and they're bringing back the Decimator from PS1!

Hey all!

First of all, since I think this is my first official post since the game has been live, a quick introduction. My name is Matt Higby and I'm the Creative Director for PlanetSide 2, my job is to work with all of our game designers as well as the other team directors to help build the game. I'm also supposed to post on the forums and make funny movies on youtube.

I wanted to post today to talk about some changes to vehicle balance and especially air-to-ground gameplay. Air-to-ground interactions (and i'm talking about ground-to-air interactions with this too) are one of the most challenging balance touch points in the game. It's very easy with minor changes to make people on either end of this equation feel like they're getting hosed.

Goal for ground based anti-air:
We've talked before a bit about wanting ground to be an effective deterrent to air, and a very dangerous threat against pilots who are being risky (strafing, bombing low, hover spamming rockets, etc), but not necessarily be a hard counter to air. Ultimately friendly air power should be the best counter to enemy air power. I think that statement has been interpreted by some as us saying that the current balance is what we want, I want to be clear: that is not the case. Currently the air-to-ground balance is favoring air a bit too much, and aircraft have an imbalanced influence on the battlefield compared to ground.

In next week's update we're making some adjustments to the air-to-ground gameplay, some of these will affect ground vehicles and some even affect infantry vs infantry, but the main purpose is to bring air and ground into balance a bit more. None of these are enormous changes, but the cumulative effect should be closer to our goal of allowing ground to be an effective deterrent to air and a dangerous threat against pilots who are being risky.

Lock on Rocket Launchers (AV and AA):
- Range Increase
- Faster reload time (to compensate for lock on time)
- Now require lock on to fire

Flak:
- Minor damage increase
- Projectile speed increase

A30 Walker:
- Buffed Damage
- Faster Projectile

Rocket Pods:
- Decrease to the inner explosion radius: 3m to 1.5m. This is the center of the rocket explosion where the maximum damage occurs, so this will not affect direct hits. Effectively this makes the damage falloff at the center of the rocket pod explosion start closer to the center.

Flak Armor:
- Increase maximum explosion resistance for certed Flak armor from 25% to 50%. This makes Flak armor a more viable choice over Nanoweave for soldiers being attacked with explosives.

Decimator:
- New Heavy Assault common pool rocket launcher. High-damage anti-vehicle weapon, has a slow projectile speed and no lock on, but does massive damage to vehicles and other armored targets.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a very complex balance touch point, and we expect that balance changes will continue to occur to this area of the game until it feels great. We think these changes should help a lot to keep infantry and ground vehicles feeling competitive with their colleagues and enemies in the sky and will be a good first step in the journey of balance.

As always, we are eager to hear your feedback, questions and concerns.
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almalino said:
PS2 literally killed my SSD second time :) Reinstalling Windows now. It is not a PS2 fault, I just have a crappy OCZ SSD and PS2 knows how to kill it efficiently :)
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The Sandforce controller on your SSD is killing your SSD :D


But yea using an SSD for PS2 is well worth it ..
 
darkstarcow said:
I am getting really sick of people abusing the proximity VOIP by playing shitty music, screaming into the mic, etc... It gets even more frustrating when I try to go in and mute them just to have the list keep jumping around so I end up muting everyone but the jerk off.
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Guilty. Trololol.

People love it when I play La Bamba!
 
darkstarcow said:
I am getting really sick of people abusing the proximity VOIP by playing shitty music, screaming into the mic, etc... It gets even more frustrating when I try to go in and mute them just to have the list keep jumping around so I end up muting everyone but the jerk off.
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Then you'll never, ever want to get on xbox live pub games. Because that's pretty much all the kiddies do on there besides calling your grandmother a "f@ggot n-word" (true story) in their high pitched mickey mouse voices.

In other news, its good to see the PS2 devs are banning some of the more blatant aimbotters/wallhackers although I question the wisdom of the PS2 dev's tweet calling out the guy he banned but then including the name of the site he works for which sells the hack :headdesk:

The bigger problem is, since the game is F2P the hackers have nothing to fear getting banned, they aren't out any money and just create a new acct.
 
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I bought the Flare LMG with certs two days ago and am loving it, I can take down people fairly quickly at all but very far range, and I expect the 6x scope to fix that. The Lasher really is a joke compared to the Flare, I rack up more kills faster then I could of dreamed when I was using the Lasher. Moral of the story; if you play team Barney as a Heavy Assault, get the Flare and don't even think about wasting money or certs on the Lasher.

Edit: I would even go so far as to say the game has become much more enjoyable using a good weapon.
 
Kersk said:
Ya I hate that jump jet bug. It seems to be related to dying as another class then switching to LA. To fix it you only need to logout from the game, you don't need to quit all the way out.

As for the rocket pods, they are nerfing the rocket pod splash damage a bit in a patch next week and making some other Anti-Air changes. Also the secondary slot isn't "empty", you lose the external afterburner fuel tanks. I agree though, the rocketpods are a pretty solid upgrade. We'll see how the patch plays out.
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I dislike the lock on missles! Until you grab a bunch of flares (which isn't cheap) there is pretty much no defense against them, and even at full speed in the opposite direction diving through a forest they still seem to have a near 100% hit rate. So a player can just buy missiles and flares and have a huuge advantage over the other players. As there isn't really any counter against missles (other than ambush) that bit is kind of p2w right now. :D
 
Lock on Rocket Launchers (AV and AA):
- Range Increase - Very much needed for Libs that lay down fire from outer space but the range seemed pretty balanced otherwise
- Faster reload time (to compensate for lock on time) - I felt that it was already ok
- Now require lock on to fire - Good to know that the $7 I spent on the Hawk was wasted


The first change needed to happen in some form but I'm not sure how I feel about it. The second change is nice but I'm not sure it was needed. The third change is awful. The Hawk already did reduced damage against ground armor and now you can't even use it against them at all. But how nice of them to release another $7 weapon to be used against armor to compensate. :rolleyes:

If weapons are going to continue being $7 or next to impossible to get enough certs for AND get screwed with then this game's population is going to tank fast. I'm not going to waste money on a well balanced weapon if there is a chance that it's going to get nerfed to where it's only useable in half of the situations it was before nor will I put 40 or 50 hours into the game just so I can unlock one weapon and ignore needed suit upgrades.
 
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darkstarcow said:
I bought the Flare LMG with certs two days ago and am loving it, I can take down people fairly quickly at all but very far range, and I expect the 6x scope to fix that. The Lasher really is a joke compared to the Flare, I rack up more kills faster then I could of dreamed when I was using the Lasher. Moral of the story; if you play team Barney as a Heavy Assault, get the Flare and don't even think about wasting money or certs on the Lasher.

Edit: I would even go so far as to say the game has become much more enjoyable using a good weapon.
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Whats the equivilent of the Flare for Terran Republic?
 
DeathPrincess said:
I dislike the lock on missles! Until you grab a bunch of flares (which isn't cheap) there is pretty much no defense against them, and even at full speed in the opposite direction diving through a forest they still seem to have a near 100% hit rate. So a player can just buy missiles and flares and have a huuge advantage over the other players. As there isn't really any counter against missles (other than ambush) that bit is kind of p2w right now. :D
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Not that most of the other complaints In here aren't complete horseshit, but this takes the cake. Yes you can buy rocket pods, yes you can use your cert points to get flares. Just because someone got rocket pods and you used your certs on something else doesn't make it pay to win. You have access to literally everything directly related to battle. Spending money gets you some things quicker. What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Just because someone else supported the devs and got something for money instead of a dozen hours of playing, doesn't mean they're paying to win. If they restrict flares to pay only, then you may have a point.
 
Zorachus said:
My brothers were asking that same question this weekend. They are big PC Gamers, love the BattleField franchise, even both still play WoW very casually. But they ask how the hell is Planetside 2 gonna make any money if the game is free.

I said by buying weapon upgrades, etc...they laughed, and said no fucking way in hell would they ever spend real money for a video game weapon, they both flat out said, just never gonna do that. They said PS2 should have been sold like a full box game @ $60 like BF3, and they would happily buy it. But for some reason they just can't see themselves going online with their credit card to buy a game weapon.

Same with WoW, they like it, no an issue paying the $15/month fee, but they would NEVER buy Gold online, or a new mount or pet from the Blizzard store, they said no way in hell would they ever pay that crap. They say the $15/month is ok, they gettng new content and updates for that stuff.

Now their question for PS2 is, if they will never pay for new weapons, should they just stop playing the game, because someone who is willing to fork out real cash will be better than them, who just play casually.
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SOE's pay model is a bit different. Believe me, I've heard people say the same thing about other SOE games, over and over, yet now when they hear SOE is having a Triple station cash weekend, I always hear how they went to walmart and picked up a few cards to get a ton of station cash for short money.

Btw, there is a big difference between buying station cash and buying gold in WoW. Station cash is supported, encouraged and how the game is funded. Buying gold in WoW can get you banned.

In the end, players that claim they won't buy in game items usually do. It's easy enough to justify, especially on those double and tripple cash weekends.

-Hey, I'd pay $60 on this game if it were standalone, so, $60 in cash isn't a problem.
-Hey, That's $100 in cash for $25 from walmart, it's so worth it.
-Hey, I can spend $7 ($2.30 on tripple weekends) to save myself 1000 certs!

Hell, I remember saying to friends in the 90's that I would never pay a subscription for a game.

In the end, there are many compelling ways to get people to spend. Most will spend something.
 
You have no concept of what P2W is do you? It is the ability to pay money for an advantage, given that rocket pods are 1k certs, it would take 50+ hours to save up for that one item. So yes, paying for rocket pods are P2W.
 
All F2P games I have played are P2W, there is simply no way a fair person can deny this. A lot of people say when if you have skill you can overcome it, but that's not the point is it? If you take 2 equal guys with exactly the same skill and give one access to every weapon to choose from and the other only the free stuff you get when you first spawn then pit them against each other who do you think is going to win more times? F2P has become one of the most annoying fads to kill games now days. Even if you say weapons are side grades, there are usually special situations where the side grade becomes the superior weapon and the guy who paid can set up those situations forcing others to come into an area where he is strong, you can't do anything about it without a counter weapon or the same weapon.

In the end there is no reason that any business model has to be bad, I mean shoot look at games like BF3 where you pay outright but can still P2W, but F2P is one where it just is 95% of the time. The temptation to the devs is too great. Just as darkstarcow said, its simple if you want to know if a game is P2W or F2P look at how long they force you to get a weapon, and if that weapon really was a side grade, well then no one would care to obtain it. Lots of people out there like P2W because they are willing to pay. I dont care I am willing to pay but it has to be reasonable IE I should be able to drop no more than $50 bucks into the game and get just about every item unlocked. And when a sale comes around I should be able to do that same feat for $30
 
DeathPrincess said:
I dislike the lock on missles! Until you grab a bunch of flares (which isn't cheap) there is pretty much no defense against them, and even at full speed in the opposite direction diving through a forest they still seem to have a near 100% hit rate. So a player can just buy missiles and flares and have a huuge advantage over the other players. As there isn't really any counter against missles (other than ambush) that bit is kind of p2w right now. :D
Click to expand...

P2W = Pay2Win or Patience2Win? :) Because you pick one, you either spend more time or more money getting to the same point as the other guy. There's pretty much nothing I can see in the game that someone can pay for to gain an unfair advantage that can't be countered by someone that spent enough time and patience to achieve.

The common P2W complaints I see regarding this game seems to be people that are bitching about what really boils down to them not wanting to spend money OR time to level up and upgrade, F2P model be damned and forgetting why the game they have the privilege of playing was free to download. Nobody's making games out of the kindness of their hearts.

darkstarcow said:
You have no concept of what P2W is do you? It is the ability to pay money for an advantage, given that rocket pods are 1k certs, it would take 50+ hours to save up for that one item. So yes, paying for rocket pods are P2W.
Click to expand...

Case in point. The fact is you can spend the time saving up for that upgrade if you put time in, it is achievable. People just want it both ways - don't want to pay for upgrades AND don't want to put the time in. Pay2Win would be a legitimate complaint with PS2 if it unlocked things that are unachievable any other way. Don't like it, Uninstall - it cost you nothing anyway.
 
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Dethred said:
Not that most of the other complaints In here aren't complete horseshit, but this takes the cake. Yes you can buy rocket pods, yes you can use your cert points to get flares. Just because someone got rocket pods and you used your certs on something else doesn't make it pay to win. You have access to literally everything directly related to battle. Spending money gets you some things quicker. What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Just because someone else supported the devs and got something for money instead of a dozen hours of playing, doesn't mean they're paying to win. If they restrict flares to pay only, then you may have a point.
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odditory said:
P2W = Pay2Win or Patience2Win? :) Because you pick one, you either spend more time or more money getting to the same point as the other guy. There's pretty much nothing I can see in the game that someone can pay for to gain an unfair advantage that can't be countered by someone that spent enough time and patience to achieve.
Click to expand...

I said currently. It's unlikely someone not buying stuff will have enough points to buy a bunch of rockets and flares this early on. 1100 points (or something) isn't really easy to get without at least a weeks worth of play. So until the "non payers" play enough or gain a large amount of exp, it's going to be very unbalanced in the payers favour.

There isn't really another eapon that is so unbalanced, especially as it doesn't replace the main cannon. Even with flares come across 2 fighters with cannons and you have a chance, come accross 2 with rockets and there is no defence. You cannot use flares fast enough to counter. You cannot avoid them through skillz so it's kind of silly. They should make them either slower lockons, shorter range lockons, more avoidable or slower firing (or give everyone flares by default) or have the missiles unable to track you if you turn too fast/move too fast. It's supposed to be a backup weapon, so if it sucks, it doesn't really matter. There isn't another weapon in the game that you must have a bought counter for or it's auto lose. There's no "anti shotgun" armor. :D
 
rudy said:
I should be able to drop no more than $50 bucks into the game and get just about every item unlocked. And when a sale comes around I should be able to do that same feat for $30
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That's not how MMO's work. You can't start up World of Warcraft and go, I'm gonna give you $50 now make me max level and give me instant access to all the best loot in the game.

Planetside 2 is definitely grindy but a f2p player can still compete and have fun in the game. If you spent $50 during the triple station cash sale you'd have $150 in your account. And if you only buy items that are 1/2 off in the in-game store you'd have the equivalent of $300. More than enough to get most of what you want without having to grind.

I do agree that they should speed up cert gain for f2p players though. Maybe even start players with a couple hundred certs to spend.
 
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I get 1000 certs for approximately every ten hours of play. Yes I medic whore for XP points, but if it's that big of a problem then spend the time on getting flares or rockets for your own aircraft.

If your argument has any validity, then it's also unfair that the unemployed or college kids get to spend 12-15 hours a day on games like BF3 getting all the decent unlocks weeks before the general public. Pay2Win is when there is a weapon that can only be purchased that gives a huge advantage and it's counter-measure also requires cash. In this case EVERYONE has to cert into flares, and anyone can cert into missiles as well. Or should the game be free and have no revenue stream?
 
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Maybe I'm looking at it in too much context...

But people go buy BF3, a Shitty horribly supported console port, and it's "expansion pack" for $120 total. One year on, and the game is essentially dead and they're planning on pumping out another recycled piece of shit just like COD.

PS2 comes out as a fully dedicated PC game, is free to play, is like a traditional BF game on crack, has all the features a PC gamer should expect from a modern PC FPS......

And people aren't willing to pay some money to merely get the unlocks faster. Let me repeat, you get to choose how much you spend on the game and some people have a problem with it???

Maybe I got over my initial reservations about the f2p system when I considered my SC purchase to be a donation for providing a free game that is amazing to play. Shit, I still have 1600SC sitting unused after getting 4000 for the Alpha squad pack

"Waaaah, mommy I have to play the actual game and use teamwork to get points for unlocks. Waaaah."

I remember BF2 had one gun unlock per rank up. I played BF2 for about 2000 hours and never unlocked all the guns. Maybe back then the FPS genre was more about having fun, instead of amassing weapons unlocks, but I don't remember people bitching constantly about having the play the fucking game (just to get an unlock).
 
Dethred said:
Maybe I'm looking at it in too much context...

But people go buy BF3, a Shitty horribly supported console port, and it's "expansion pack" for $120 total. One year on, and the game is essentially dead and they're planning on pumping out another recycled piece of shit just like COD.

PS2 comes out as a fully dedicated PC game, is free to play, is like a traditional BF game on crack, has all the features a PC gamer should expect from a modern PC FPS......

And people aren't willing to pay some money to merely get the unlocks faster. Let me repeat, you get to choose how much you spend on the game and some people have a problem with it???

Maybe I got over my initial reservations about the f2p system when I considered my SC purchase to be a donation for providing a free game that is amazing to play. Shit, I still have 1600SC sitting unused after getting 4000 for the Alpha squad pack

"Waaaah, mommy I have to play the actual game and use teamwork to get points for unlocks. Waaaah."

I remember BF2 had one gun unlock per rank up. I played BF2 for about 2000 hours and never unlocked all the guns. Maybe back then the FPS genre was more about having fun, instead of amassing weapons unlocks, but I don't remember people bitching constantly about having the play the fucking game (just to get an unlock).
Click to expand...

Hai, whur is mai "I WIN" Butten? I dun like to werk in games, whur are the quests?


In all seriousness the game is awesome, I'm still learning but still having fun.

My pet peeve is when I revive someone and they run off without letting me heal them fully. Ok fuckwad, go ahead....not going to revive you again or chase after you. The BF3/Cod (all in the same now) crowd wants instant gratification. I like the fact that unlocks are hard to get for each weapon, but the tokens used to get them are universal.
 
What should I buy for a good noob kit? I play mostly medic or support infantry with the occasional tanking escapade. The jet packs look fun.
 
Played with a friend yesterday for the first time. We had both played the game a bit on our own and were both pretty "meh" about the whole thing individually. My opinions did not take a 180 but things were definitely more fun working together. We actually played it kind of like TF2, one of us would go heavy assault and the other medic, or one of us would go max and the other engineer and then become a two man wrecking team. [HEAVY VOICE] WAS GOOD TIME
 
Ryan5508 said:
yes up to 400% with a sub and boost is what i read
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WOw! Thank you! Time to grind some good upgrades this weekend. I'm 20 certs away from bouncing betty. Then I will upgrade cloaking , armor and other infiltrator stuff.
 
Skizzy said:
You could already do that just climbing up the beams on the side. Now remember that enemies inside can shoot you but you still can't shoot them (through the barrier). So while you're sitting there with your tanks or trying to get in, they'll be blasting your face off. :p
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There is an unprotected gap above the shield . I usually toss grenades there to kill guys inside. With the trick above I actually can jump in :)
 
almalino said:
There is an unprotected gap above the shield . I usually toss grenades there to kill guys inside. With the trick above I actually can jump in :)
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Build fortified base with impenetrable shield. Leave a gap above it where people can throw in nades. :confused:
 
Dethred said:
Maybe I'm looking at it in too much context...

But people go buy BF3, a Shitty horribly supported console port, and it's "expansion pack" for $120 total. One year on, and the game is essentially dead and they're planning on pumping out another recycled piece of shit just like COD.

PS2 comes out as a fully dedicated PC game, is free to play, is like a traditional BF game on crack, has all the features a PC gamer should expect from a modern PC FPS......

And people aren't willing to pay some money to merely get the unlocks faster. Let me repeat, you get to choose how much you spend on the game and some people have a problem with it???

Maybe I got over my initial reservations about the f2p system when I considered my SC purchase to be a donation for providing a free game that is amazing to play. Shit, I still have 1600SC sitting unused after getting 4000 for the Alpha squad pack

"Waaaah, mommy I have to play the actual game and use teamwork to get points for unlocks. Waaaah."

I remember BF2 had one gun unlock per rank up. I played BF2 for about 2000 hours and never unlocked all the guns. Maybe back then the FPS genre was more about having fun, instead of amassing weapons unlocks, but I don't remember people bitching constantly about having the play the fucking game (just to get an unlock).
Click to expand...

When I bought BF3, I didn't have shitty graphics due to an unoptimized engine. I also didn't have to play 1000 hours to unlock most of the weapons.

You seem to have forgotten a key fact about unlocks in BF2, you couldn't pay real money to unlock them before everyone else, giving you a distinct advantage.

Spending money in PS2 gives you a distinct advantage right now, if you were to unlock weapons for 2 classes, 1 aircraft, and 2 vehicles, your looking at anywhere from 1250-5000 certs(20-80 hours), and that is just for the weapon systems. You want to have anti-air and anti-tank weapon unlocks on each vehicle? your now looking at close something like 5000-10,000 certs (100-200 hours). Now, you can spend 200 hours playing, or spend $100 to get all of those weapons from the start, giving yourself a big advantage.

PS2 is P2W, the pricing of items means that unless you want to play the game as a full time job, you will be outclassed by those who spend money. This gets even worse considering they will be releasing new weapons and vehicles in the future.
 
I don't care how much other players have, I manage to have fun with the basic equipment. I'm pretty sure 'FUN' is the point of an online shooter.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Wait, so you get XP boost by being a premium subscriber too?
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50% I believe, the best thing to do is pay for at least 6 months up front as the bonuses slowly ramp up from 25-50% if you pay monthly. If you pay all at once I believe it was stated that you receive the maximum bonuses from day 1.
 
darkstarcow said:
You seem to have forgotten a key fact about unlocks in BF2, you couldn't pay real money to unlock them before everyone else, giving you a distinct advantage.
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Well people that pre-ordered BF or spent additional money on special editions or bought expansions/DLC did get unlocks before the people that didn't. P2W is the current model in the FPS genre at this time.
 
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